Trouble is they get away with it as fans like these just blame the manager more than anyone . https://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/s...te-decided-january-decisions/#comments-anchor How long will Cleverley get before being criticised.
He's been in and around the game long enough to know what the expectations are, and he's done alright with the youth of Watford so far. I would assume he was well aware of the circumstances of the first team and will get "Val Ball" removed from their systems ASAP. Not sure what "Clev Ball" will be like, but hopefully he will tell it to the players' straight and gets the best out of them.
Whilst I am of the opinion that even the best manager is on a hiding to nothing at Watford under Pozzo, there’s obviously plenty of truth in the fact that Val contributed to his own demise: biggest one for me is that he seemed to own the Rajovic experiment. That guy is not a Championship level player and anyone can see it. Sure, he can improve, and has, arguably, shown that. But he has had far too much game time and should be rested now for everyone’s sake. TC must do this: play Dennis through the middle at all costs. Wrap him up in cotton wool and pay someone to massage his ego, and every limb, during the week, before and after training and whenever he wants it, especially in the dressing room before kickoff and at HT. Keep him fit and on the pitch for as long as possible, and only after you have exhausted every other possibility, bring Rajovic on, in injury time. I know very little about the advantages of certain formations, and struggle to see what system is best suited to what team blah de blah. But I can tell the difference between a really good player who is getting fit and can become a match winner this season, and someone who will take considerably longer just to develop into a Championship level striker.
Surely there’s more value to creating an atmosphere that Dennis wants to be part of, rather than pandering to the will of one player and ‘massaging his ego’. (Not suggesting in any way that Dennis has been playing up as I’m reasonably assured he hasn’t been)
Good points. Dennis is not a winger and it was painfully obvious he was struggling despite still not being match fit. He can play the "false nine" if needed and perhaps work off Bayo if we even dared go 4-4-2. Raj isn't totally out of the pecking order as we got rid of Healy but I do hope TC gives time to another forgotten young striker in Collins. Grieves seems to make the bench now and again so why not give him a go when TDB etc isn't working? Val had more than enough games to turn things around and even with Gino's track record he was very lucky to be given any games after the Huddersfield mess. Writing was on the wall when the system wasn't working and the one-trick pony ran out of displays.
So how long does Cleverley have control? Is it until the end of the season, just the next match, or until they settle on the next manager?
No. I am not echoing the old rhetoric about him and his apparently disruptive behaviour. But every player has an ego and a need to be managed well. I’m saying that here’s a player who can play a big part in making the best out of a fairly wretched situation.
I think Dennis has the ability - but he also needs a decent supporting cast who can create lots of chances for him and give him the ball often. Not sure he has that this time around.
Clevs is there for one or two games, hopefully to get a bounce against Birmingham before they bring in or at least know who their new victim will be. If they can get Steve Cooper to come to LaLa land then great, probably our best choice now Nathen Jones has gone to Charlton.
This, 100 times over. Obviously it's clear now (and has been for some time) that VI was an extremely limited coach - which his track record suggested he was - yet the stability still hired him anyway. But surely nobody thinks our fantastic recruitment team (bearing in mind all of the Manga group had recently been fired) had loads of 'quality' alternatives lined up should they not be able to sign VI's preferred targets? We all know it would have been utter dross from Bayat that would have brought zero quality to the squad on ridiculously long contracts. I think it speaks volumes that Val decided the squad would be better off without them despite being so low on numbers. VI had to go, but the clowns in charge don't get excused their part in this. How apt that Mogi was pictured sitting between them at Millwall last week. And no article released in the near future naming actual decent players that were turned down will convince me it's not more ******** from Pozzo to blame everyone else whilst exonerating himself of the train wreck that is our club.
Andrew French’s article today seems to heavily suggest they were players who could help us, not Bayo tat. I also remember AF said at the time of his interview with Val, that he knew the names but wouldn’t name them as he had been asked not to. And if he wants to keep his links/sources etc, that’s fair I’d say.
I think the line about a new coaching staff being announced in short order, suggests that it’s for more than 1-2 games. It’s Cleverley until the end of the season, I’m very confident of that.
Who is Cleverley likely to be able to get as his coaching staff for such a limited amount of games? It'll surely just be Charlie Daniels as assistant manager, won't it?! Maybe also Dan Gosling as he's currently out of contract and if they got on? Not sure if he has any ambitions of being a coach though.
Please no. He was disastrous at FGR for one thing. Can't imagine Troy being happy with playing second fiddle either.
I don’t know - heard a few things about potentially some experience coming in. Wouldn’t shock me if Paul Robinson had been approached maybe. Or maybe even Mike Phelan if Cleverley is given any input. Id also be surprised if they moved Daniels from the youth setup considering they are losing Cleverley to the first team setup and have sacked Riza now.
Personally, I'd bring him back & stick him on the pitch for the last nine games. I'd wager he's still got more clue than the current so-called strikers we've got. Just want us to scrape a couple of wins from somewhere, & get this wretched season over as soon as possible. Then I can spend the following three months deluding myself that all will be well come August, and next season will be 'our year',
Confusingly, I think Millwall had another person called Paul Robinson on the coaching staff recently too! Sounds great, Robbo is an experienced coach who knows what he's doing, I'm sure he'd be of great help to Clev
The U-23 Assistant Coach at Millwall is called Paul Mark James Robinson. He is a former Millwall player and is four years younger than Robbo.
If that is at all true I don’t personally blame VI for this though, he’s a manager not a scout, the blame lays with the owner who hired a well regarded DOF, then fired him and gave the keys to the castle to a bang average manager, who again, isn’t a scout and should never have been given the responsibilities of one.
I think Val has to take at least some of the blame. He asked for control and then did nothing useful with it.
If Andrew French ‘s article is to be believed then Val has to take some of the responsibility as it is suggesting the club backed him not to sign anyone else and to stick with the smaller squad but it didn’t work. Goes against the evil Pozzo narrative though so won’t be a very popular one explanation .
