The Championship 2020-21

King is in the last year of his contract and has refused to sign a new contract so he will go for free if Bournemouth wait until the end of the season.

 

Which is why they've priced Brooks out of the market.

 

I was with you until the last line - no chance they stick with him through anything other than promotion this season. The club have said that’s the aim and so has the manager - anything else is failure and the owner has an almost 100% hit rate for sacking in the event of failure.

 

Which they may well be prepared to risk.

 

Bournemouth look great - Keeping Danjuma, Stanislas, Lerma, Mepham, Kelly, Cook, Brooks - they are going to be right up there.
Norwich also look great - Cantwell looked an absolute class above, so did Aaarons, Godfrey.

Must be nice as a manager to be allowed to play the players you own.

 

Their owner wants his money back. This is one of the reasons along with relegtion for selling their players.
He has lost a lot of money due to the Coronavirus pandemic. He was looking to sell a few years ago.
King will go, Brooks will stay. Even if they sell, they will be up at the top along with Norwich.
Mid to lower table position for us.

 

https://www.afcb.co.uk/news/club-news/a-message-from-owner-maxim-demin/

This is quite the contradictory statement from him then.

 

Come on now, we had a similar message from Gino, yet we are in a financial mess(we owe over £120+ million), having a fire sale and rumours of the club looking for a buyer.
The 'Vote of Confidence' statement to seem to be the order of the day.

 

But both cases are here'say. Nothing more at this point. They shouldn't be stated as fact.

 

True, but the club had two interested groups in buying the club in January. We have borrowed against the prize money anticipated. Let's see if the players absent on Friday are sold at a cut price.
The team put out on Friday evening is no way good enough to gain promotion.
So what is Gino's plan? Bring in more overseas players to play in the Championship and hope one or two come good, sell them on for big money? Find a buyer for the club? Pay off the massive debts and keep going? Go into administration?
You tell me how you think Watford will get out of this mess.
Bournemouth have sold some players for big money, but sweeping financial/benefits changes have been made at that club, non playing staff. They are gambling on an instant return to the Premier League.
We want the best for the club, but we are lurching from one mess to another. Last season debacle, no pre season fitness, players not showing any effort, etc, etc. Now we have Ivic (good luck to him) and it appears he has only a number of players to choose from.
After the game on Friday, l just think we are too weak to worry anything above mid table.
I hope l am totally wrong. I just don't see it happening.

 

I've heard that we have enquired about the cost of these 4.

 

Wages?

I think their wage bill was much higher than ours last year

 

So all three teams who replaced us in the Prem have lost this weekend, aggregate score of 3-10.

I’m sure Leeds will be fine but I don’t envy supporters of Brom or Fulham. Yes obviously I’d prefer we had stayed up but it’s not much fun getting thrashed at home like that.

 

Kelly would be great for our left-footed CB in a back 3.

 

Estupinan has gone.
The first of many in Gino's Bargain Basement Fire Sale.

 

Norwich, struggled to beat a poor huddersfield side and were gifted a goal. Bournemouth, scored against the run of play when Blackburn missed chances to go 3-2 up?

 

Looks like HMS pisstheleague has been renamed The Mary Celeste

 

Harsh on Norwich, they played really really well. Two stone wall penalties denied and looked a class apart.

Bournemouth admittedly got a little fortunate, but they just looked like Bournemouth - always felt like they were going to outscore Blackburn.

 

From what I saw, both teams might struggle against teams like Boro and others in the league who are capable of spoiling.

 

£27 million higher

 

Tbf I think i'm very glass half full after that horrendous performance Friday night. Think i'd feel better even we'd drawn/lost but looked even half like scoring in open play. If Boro proved to be a decent side that may look a better performance. Guess we'll find out over the next two match days.

 

I think we saw enough in pre-season to be encouraged by and the defensive shape/organisation was pretty good on Friday I thought. With some new players/players coming back the attacking side will come (I hope).

 

Only so much you can do with so many missing (and it's not like they were all trying to pull a fast one). Friday wasn't the best performance, but pre-season was encouraging, and it's refreshing to see us solid at the back. Dare I say we'd have ****ed that game up if Pearson were still here

 

From what I saw, Blackburn could have got something there, they're surely a similar standard to Boro. I would say though that there's little scope for improvement from them, whereas we can improve on our XI against Boro, and also surely Ivic is a better manager than Tindall. I'm sure Norwich will be up there, but let's not get too carried away, they were up against Huddersfield, without Grant, who will probably be fighting desperately to avoid the drop

 

In both of the games we have been able to watch, and the highlights of the Scunthorpe game, the defensive shape has looked very good and the only chances we really conceded were from individual mistakes. That is a positive and a massive difference to how we looked for the last 18 months or so.

On the other hand bar the first half against Spurs we have struggled to create chances. That is because all of our creative players are injured, ill or kicking up a stink, but unless the club sort that out we are not going up.

Ivic looks to be doing a good job, but as it stands he is being dealt an incredibly **** hand by the board and the players.

 

I was so positive with the squad we had and the speal from the owners then post lockdown reality has kicked in. We are really starting this season with one leg tied behind our back. Those who we hoped would give it a right go are those most likely to go. Ok they didn't do it in the PL but surely in this league they would. Add to this the people who stated we would also have Cucho, Suarez and Pervis to add to the squad, now we'll probably lose all 3 and replace them with Udinese B. Reality is kicking in, we haven't really got any money and we will languish in this league like a Derby or Reading.

 

Has the defensive shape looked ‘very good’?! You can see what we are trying but they were pulled all over the shop at times on Friday night (second half mainly) and there were gaps everywhere.

 

Boro had a couple of half chances like the shot from distance by Britt, but the only clear cut chance I really remember was the Grant Hall header which was more a case of Chalobah falling asleep at a set piece. There were a few times Kiko / Wilmot got in a bit of a mess but I put that down more to the fact that Kiko was out of position and had a few days to learn it and even when Kiko does know a system he is woeful defensively.

I don't think it should be ignored that we kept a fairly strong Spurs side pretty quiet for the most part (albeit in a friendly).

In both games as well when we were out of position I thought the players did a good job responding to it.

 

I’m not ignoring the Spurs game - but I am tempering expectation that came out of it due to it being a friendly. Blackpool were 2-0 up against Liverpool on the same day for 43 mins...

I agree Boro didn’t create many clear cut chances - but my point was that they had the space to. I’m cheered by what we are trying to do. But I do stop short of saying it’s been very good so far.

 

Yeah - maybe a bit of hyperbole on my part.

Just the one small positive in the otherwise pretty **** news week as a watford fan.

 

Yep. I suspect Ivic won’t be happy that we just reverted back to old habits when the pressure came.