Watford Fc - A Deeply Rotten, Toxic Club

The two aren’t mutually exclusive are they? I think both us and Norwich will go down, unless of course Gino can wheel out the magic defibrillator for the 7th time in 1.5 seasons, and appointment someone currently out of work to do something the previous 7 managers couldn’t.

 

Well the implication is then that there is an element of the club that is toxic. So what’s the issue with fans working off the same tangent?

 

As I said I have been giving my view/opinion regarding the people who believe genuinely that Watford FC is a deeply rotten and toxic club. Nothing else.

 

Elements of the club are.

 

In the same vein, can I have mine changed to ‘Always booing, never happy’

I’ve been accused of it and I quite like it.

 

I would quite happily take a championship or league one club run by an owner that genuinely loves the club and players that give 100% and have a connection to the club over what we have now.

 

Jordan is an idiot - it's in his "narrative". So is White for that matter. They just say stuff to generate controversy and drive call volumes up. Same for most talksport phone in shows like drive time so I personally stopped listening to them.

Some shows on TS are good but these 2 are not.

 

Too true. I vaguely recall the old controversy about Billy Jennings' 'lack of workrate' and Laurie Craker's response to a question about it. Along the lines of: 'I'll do all his running for him every match as long as he keeps scoring the goals to get me a win bonus.' That's how 'teams' are constructed.
And of course, Jennings didn't just stand around doing nothing, but he did put a lot of focus on doing his work in the final third.

 

Billy Jennings, not the tallest, but lethal in the air. My first experience of an out and out goalscorer while supporting Watford. Didn't he eventually become a football agent?

 

People aren’t necessarily asking for someone with more wealth. Yeah it would be nice.

But I’d happily take someone who has the same wealth but is communicative, learns from their mistakes and has an air of decency about them. I think most of us are aware that Gino can’t sack himself and guarantee someone of the above criteria takes his place….but I think it’s equally churlish for it to be suggested by some that people who fit that mould also aren’t out there.

 

Fair enough.

 

I thought with everyone washing their hands of the club and going off to support non-league sides the forum would be dead, but this thread is weirdly busy!

 

You wrote: "The only money they spent in the summer was some of the Buendia money". The point which I was making is that Norwich spent much more than the money received for Buendia. They would also have had to pay a loan fee for Gilmour and Williams, but those fees were not included by Transfermarkt in the £64.5 million spent by Norwich on signings. I suspect that Chelsea and Manchester Utd. would have expected a reasonable fee.

You wrote an answer to my post, but your comment about obtaining loans for Gilmour and Williams is a completely different point and irrelevant to the point, which I made, about much more money was spent by Norwich last summer than you suggested. It relates to the failure of Watford to make good use of the domestic loan market (with which I agree).

 

Whether they showed up or not has nothing to do with whether they were built with a clear playing style (even if by luck), rather than spending £50m on a faster less-skilful Jobi McAnuff for a manager to use at LWB.

 

This always happens with a poor run of form. Pozzo was the worst owner ever when we lost 3-0 to Yeovil, and he was the worst owner ever when we didn't get into Europe, and then he was the worst owner ever when we got relegated, and then he was the worst owner ever when we sacked Ivic, and he's the worst owner ever now because we're 19th.

No one cared about the managerial turnover when we got promoted using 3 head coaches. We didn't have a squad full of mercenaries when we beat Everton, and players who couldn't care less when we beat Cardiff, or celebrated promotion. Or when we beat Liverpool in the relegation season.

Fact is we have a bottom 4 squad and we're in the bottom 4. It was always going to be a tough season with plenty of low points.

That's not to say the ownership haven't made mistakes this year, of course. If they weren't going to back Xisco with an adequate defence and an experienced assistant then they should have replaced him in the summer. And the amount of games Cathcart/Ekong have needed to start this season has been testiment to the lacklustre defensive recruitment (again).

But toxic and rotten? Not for me.

 

I don’t think the bit in bold is true? There has been a growing amount of discourse regarding the way we hire and fire, irrespective of what happens on the pitch.

When insiders say there is elements to what’s going on at the club that are toxic, then it’s at least worth discussing whether than holds water.

 

I was moaning long and loud about Pozzo since before the cup final season. I’m not having this Pozzo only gets moaned at when things are bad!

 

My point did not relate to the finances involved in running a Category 1 Academy, meaning that it would not be an attractive option for Watford's owners. I was merely questioning if Birmingham's youth academy was a good example to use in your original comment about the advantages of having a Category 1 Academy when Birmingham have been considering whether to close their youth academy and to remodel the club structure. Birmingham had the Category 1 licence initially granted on a one-year conditional basis and it will be reviewed during this season. They have expressed concerns about the extent of the benefits and about the large financial cost involved in running a Category 1 Academy so it is still possible that they could decide - in the future - to move to a Brentford-type model with a 'B' and 'C' team. Are there not better examples (e.g. Reading) which you could have chosen to support your original comment?

 

I don't recall much moaning when we got promoted, no.

We've had the same amount of managers as Palace in recent years, but for the most part, no one cares if it leads to success. Saying that, I have been calling for the club to stick by a HC through a rough patch.

 

You know I know this! Obviously I'm talking in general terms.

 

Well not ‘recalling much’ moaning is different from saying ‘no one cared’ - there were some who cared. I don’t think celebrating getting promoted has to be mutually exclusive with being happy at how the club is run.

A number of people have long expressed concerns - it’s not a new thing.

 

On what metric?

They have had five since January 2015. We are about to move on to number 13 in the same period (11 if you discount Mullins x 2).

 

Fair play if people were moaning instead of celebrating, I didn't see any.

 

Apologies, I meant Everton.

 

But you can celebrate in the moment but still have misgivings about the wider picture?

I’ve celebrated the UK’s vaccine roll out - doesn’t mean I support the Government.

 

Yes, that's a closer analogy.

 

Yes, I don't recall many people vociferously sharing their misgivings at the time either.

 

You're almost certainly right, but then again, we are talking about something that occurred seven years ago.

A great many things have happened subsequently. It wouldn't necessarily be inconsistent in any way to have purely celebrated promotion and yet now be unhappy with the way the club is run, or wish the Pozzo gone (not declaring that as my official un-nuanced position, just in case that gets picked up on).

Developments and long terms trends will influence people's thinking, not to mention the fact that when we were promoted we had only been owned by them for three years. It has been seven since, and ten overall. We literally know them better, and besides, as has been pointed out many times, the belief of the majority of those who have lost faith in their ownership is of a before and after and a seemingly serious break down in their ability to successfully apply their model of ownership in recent years; something which appears to now be trending down.

You could argue just as strongly, if not more so, that the examples you gave, such as the victory over Liverpool, were the far more fickle reactions than those to your poor run of form - and, I would imagine, that criticism was in fact not far from many people's lips, given that it took place midway through our first relegation season.

 

Whilst this is true, there would also have been similar criticism if they'd held onto a failing manager for too long. I think they're certainly ruthless and following their Udinese model but I'm not sure I'd have wanted them to hold onto any of their managerial appointments longer than they did, other than maybe Gracia. Does this affect the quality of managers being brought in ? Possibly but difficult to be sure. Many of their leftfield appointments, like Joka, Munoz, Gracia, QSF mkI have been pretty effective, if not for the longterm.

 

I’d have kept Joka (although not with hindsight of guaranteed mid table under QSF) and mad Walt. And Silva…….