Duxbury Out

Who knew?

 

Also - the club didn’t spend when it was glaringly obvious we were defensively poor. They aren’t going to drop £4m on Doig with the sole reason being Masina will be missing a few games. We all know they would try and struggle by with just Rose or find an out-of-contract fix to plug a short term hole. They won’t spend £4m on Doig to cover 3-4 games. It’s pie in the Sky stuff from Leventhal to suggest as much.

They were happy to spend months without a LB at all last season - why would they suddenly panic about not having 2?

 

I'm shocked to read some of the comments on here.

Yes there are weaknesses in the defence, but the club hierarchy will know better than any of us, and if they say Catchart and WTE are good enough to start games in this league, then they know what they are talking about. Remember, we wouldn't even have a club to support without them! I, for one, am confident that the obvious evidence in front of my eyes for the past 7 years (in Cathcart's case) and season and a bit (for WTE) is incorrect and that we need to just trust in Dux and Gino that their policy of forcing us to field absolutely sub standard defenders is a bold and progressive one.

In Pozzo We Trust.

More on this week's podcast in all the usual places.

 

I presume the club have told him to put this out because after the distraction of one freak result even they feel the sheer ludicrousness of the defensive situation can’t be completely ignored anymore after the Southampton performance - as ever, though, makes it even harder to explain why they chose to craft another rod for their own backs they’re soon forced to take steps to deal with when all they had to do was do their job properly in the first place, and the problem wouldn’t have existed to fix - it’s entirely of their own creation.

 

It's an utterly bizarre tactic. Try and gaslight 20,000 people that obvious, evident facts aren't true and that, in fact, the defence is not that bad at all. Sugar coat it all by dangling a vague promise about taking a look in January at something that should have been remedied 8 windows ago and voila, you have the WFC PR machine summed up in one, neat and tidy package.

 

I'm wondering how **** Nigeria must be if he's captain.

 

But is anyone surprised? You only have to look at some of the dribblers on Twitter to find many actually lap up what the club serve them. These are the people the club are trying to appease - because it’s easy. And they spend fortunes in the club shop and get to the ground at 1:30pm for their bovril and inedible food to further line the clubs coffers.

Fans who spend the same amount of money on tickets but are vocal about their displeasure are seen as not as important.

 

We deserve what we get as a fanbase. Those of us trying to hold the owners to account are drowned out by the dribbling mass of Flavor Aid quaffing loyal followers who would eat a turd sandwich if Gino told them to.

 

The only shock from that articleis fact AL didn’t mention that Morris bloke, in providing further evidence of our defensive depth.

 

That'll crop up again in January when we offer Hibs £50 and a packet of Mini Cheddars for Doig. Once that gets knocked back Leventhal will say the club have decided that Morris can cover in Masina's absence.

 

Don’t forget they’ve still got Kucka to pull out of the bag, he’s played CB before so they can always smash the glass on that if the PR department get really desperate.

 

Funny old world is football.

You have clubs like West Ham that are currently living the dream, winning big games and playing in Europe - yet their fans were calling for their owners heads not so long ago. How long will it take until the hostility against their Board resumes?

Tottenham Hotspur - finals of the Champion’s league, cemented themselves as a top 8 in the league, whilst drawing in some of the best managers in the world to manage their team. Yet their fans aren’t happy.

Everyone wants the best of their club. Those ‘big’ teams do, but so does the fanbase of little ol’ Watford - and rightfully so!

It comes to a point however where you have to be realistic. The competitiveness of the league is second to none and although there are things that should be addressed such as the lack of recruitment in our defence, we have to realise that we are competing against Clubs that are vastly more ambitious than we are, and all of them have the money at their disposal to match that ambition. We, on the other hand, simply do not.

It’s easy to call for a new defender to be signed, but the finances say otherwise. Although I agree that It’s absolutely criminal that Craig Cathcart is still starting for us, in truth, I don’t think the club has the ability to draw in anyone better.. unless of course they are either a free agent or are at Udinese.

If there is a player that we like the look of, the club that they’re at are almost definitely asking for sums of money that we cannot afford.

Hence why we’re stuck in a limbo of signing cheap/free players hoping that they’re better than what we have.

 

All very well until the point where you say finances say otherwise. We find £9 million to pay Mogi Bayet on a non playing midfielder. Don’t do that and we have some budget for modest defensive upgrades, even if on loan. They put their agent mate first so we have to put up with the woeful Cathcart.

I find the argument that you need to break the bank to upgrade Cathcart ludicrous. He’s a seriously declining player who would be a weak link in the championship.

 

Again, though, for the millionth time - literally no one is calling for unrestrained, bankrupt-risking spending. We're asking for the slightest bit of strategic and/or joined-up thinking allied with any intelligent decision-making at all in the spending that we can and do carry out.

It's nothing to do with unrealistic expectations - we're all incredibly aware of what it's fair to expect and, relatively-speaking, how rich the club is. The point is that the hierarchy are currently helping to minimise what the club could achieve from the position that it is in (thanks to the previous efforts of the hierarchy, yes), rather than maximise it, owing to a bewildering and sustained campaign of idiotic fiddling whilst Rome burns.

 

When we were splashing premier league cash around pre-Covid and relegation they still never spent money on defenders.

It’s got nothing to do with money, it’s a misguided belief they aren’t at all important. We sold Wilmot for a pittance and I’d genuinely have preferred to see him playing instead of Cathcart, even if he himself isn’t good enough.

We will most likely be relegated and it will be because we can’t keep a clean sheet, and what helps you keep clean sheets?

 

A washing machine?

 

If Gino could get away with starting one at CB he would.

 

I remember after losing 1-0 away to Huddersfield about 5 years ago with some comedy defending all the talk was “Gino will sort it”. “Gino knows what he is doing. He’s not an idiot”.

The only action was to renew Britos contract and it’s continued ever since from there.

 

To be fair, we’ve got a brand new excuse. ‘We can’t attract any good defenders’. At least the excuses are evolving. Can sign £40m wingers and £9m midfielders that never play. But a defender? Don’t make me laugh, they all hate Watford.

I’m sure this will be the new company line on all the latest pods.

 

I understand we have financial limitations but we've been happy to waste money on new deals for ageing, underperforming and injury prone players (Janmaat, Mariappa, Cathcart, Deeney). It's still happening as well, Kabasele and Kiko got new deals recently, they're both over 30 and not good enough for the Premier League so why? Ken Sema had a couple of years left on his deal and we gave him a new five year deal, he's not good enough for the Premier League and barely the Championship so why is he getting a new deal?

The squad building from the club has been farcical since 2017. Spending money buying absolute **** and spending more money keeping existing **** at the club. We had limited funds this summer, literally every Watford fan on the planet knew that we needed a centre back so of course instead of getting one they went and sold one leaving us even weaker!

I don't trust the club to spend money wisely and we are in the current financial situation because they have spaffed money up the wall for years. Then we get condescending comments from Duxbury because the fans can see the glaring problems with the team that they are either wilfully ignoring or are too stupid to see.

 

The bloke is an absolute **** head and completely full of sh*t. Sooner he f**ks off the better.

 

“Thank you Nath. And now on 5live it’s the travel update”

 

Generally you have to question this amazing worldwide scouting network that runs 24/7 …. its effectiveness has been seriously declining over the seasons

 

My mind went to a Jewish wedding rather than an emergency case. Mazel tov.

 

https://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/s...-vows-learn-mistakes-rediscover-watfords-dna/

This has not aged well.

 

It’s barely aged…which is sort of the problem. Duxbury’s not stupid. He wasn’t promising a top to bottom overhaul in the space of one summer transfer window. It was also part of the same thought process that led to them hanging on to Xisco, which was another catastrophic decision.

 

But we have had a top to bottom overhaul of the squad since Day 1 of his reign. His transfer policy is the epitome of throwing enough S*** at the wall and hoping some of it sticks. Then the next summer we have to do it all again because they have signed so many dud, completely useless players.

 

But many of them are on long contracts, can't be got rid of and have to be integrated into a squad no matter how ill suited.

 

When I see Brighton and the way Brentford's squads perform I realise that we are light years behind them. We are not good enough for the premier league and relegation is when this season and not if. Although I will be collecting a lot of money from the bookies it does not hide my disappointment in the state of our club.

 

Yes you've found 2 smallish clubs who are currently performing better than us. I suspect Brentford's success will be relatively short-lived and Brighton have the scope to be a much bigger club with new stadium, captive support base and bankrolled financial support. What about the 20 odd clubs with larger fanbases in the champ / league 1 who are below us ? Wow, they must REALLY be performing badly then ?

 

I fully agree with you as we are probably ranked about 30th in size of club. We have punched above our weight since the Pozzos took over but reality has caught us up and we will revert to our true level as the rich are getting richer.

 

yes agree 100%

 

Which, I am sure, is what GT predicted as being the most likely achievable long-term future for us....comfortably mid-table in the 2nd tier with various promotions to the top tier, where we would be unlikely to finish in the top half that often. Relegation battles in tier 2 & pushes for European qualification could both be seen as outliers representing under/over performing. So realistically bouncing around between 10th in the Prem & 10th in the Championship.

I think it's called realism, although numerous people will call it defeatism. I can't honestly see us breaking out of that bracket in a positive sense unless some serious money buys us....and, as ever, the question would always arise as to where such money was acquired & whether we'd be comfortable with it.

At least we knew SEJ was a lifelong fan & how he'd made his money.