I think it's pretty clear the players (and to an extent) the fans are just cash deposits to Gino. If he really cared about Watford with all his heart he would not of gotten us into this situation. Yes everyone makes mistakes, but the people who care learn from them and become better people. Whatever faith the fanbase had in this ownership has long since evaporated. Chucking fans' out of the ground last season for a legal/rightful protest was for many the final straw. That on it's own, showed the level of distain he has for the fanbase. He didn't try to work with us to make the situation better - he just marched stewards out to line the exits.
I'll try to keep this short as I don't want to get involved in the ownership hating/loving malarky on here or anywhere else. I'm also trying to not post anything because I don't believe consistently posting is a healthy activity, not for me anyway. Especially not when there's little debate, merely repeating ad infinitum of particular points of view back and forth. Saying that, I feel compelled to add this point to any 'debate' going on here. It reads badly that Bayo didn't get any warning he was to be sent out on loan. I mean, can you imagine having to uproot your life at a few days notice? Does he have kids, a family life, was he settling into the area, etc.? It must be very destabilising on a personal level. But despite obviously being put out because of his sudden departure he appears to have taken it well, isn't harbouring grudges and even hoped it was in the best interests of the club. That screams out two things for me. 1. He's an unselfish individual and is fully aware 'it isn't all about me', and 2. This isn't that uncommon. Okay, it doesn't scream out the second point but I can't for the life of me remember the other thing I was going to say. Maybe it was more of a whisper. But the second point is valid because I remember a number of ex-pro's, when discussing the transfer window on various programmes I've listened to, relating similar stories. Unfortunately it's a consequence of the transfer window and players being treated as commodities by not just hundreds (thousands?) of clubs the world over, but by the governing bodies who are happy for this practice to continue. It really isn't a Pozzo thing. It's a football thing. That doesn't make it right and I'm not defending Pozzo, the club or whoever is tasked with communicating to the player of such things. It's ****. But listening to players speak about the transfer window it is neither uncommon nor wholly unexpected when it happens.
He probably only got sent out on loan after the negative reaction he gave to being subbed when young Tobi replaced him v Blackpool. Pozzos etc probably thought it was a good excuse to get rid. "Bad attitude" etc.
Presume he'd been told in no uncertain terms that it was 'go back to Charleroi or rot in the reserves all season'?
If so, that would suggest it was Bilic's choice, no? Not sure what Pozzo has to gain from a sizeable investment playing u23 football for half a season, for no particular reason...
Then he probably would have trained all week with no possibility of getting a game. He's either the most understanding bloke of all time and went away without asking any questions or it was explained to him at the last moment and he agreed. By going back to Charleroi it wasn't such a bad choice for him really. Back to a club, surrounds and players he knew.
Interesting post (as always, wish you did post a bit more frequently but respect your reasons for not doing so). I don't doubt that in some respects it's part of the deal in the industry and factored in alongside your very high remuneration and the shortness of your career. On the flip side, there's a fair body of evidence that we routinely treat players very poorly. Whether other clubs also do that I don't know as I have little interest in wider football...
That's a different question altogether to the one I posted about and not something I can fathom. I don't see how the club benefitted financially from effectively swapping Bayo for Assombalonga so it probably wasn't that. But then an unfit Assombalonga was worse than Bayo so I'd hope it wasn't for purely reasons of ability. Did we bring in other non-homegrown players at that time so had to balance those numbers? If so maybe Bilic thought Bayo was the most expendable and Britt was a short term homegrown squad filler who new the club, albeit from some years previously, had Championship experience and was both available and free? I don't know and I'm not interested enough to go back and check. As you say though, logic doesn't appear to play any part of the decision making process in this decision.
Thanks SLB, that's much appreciated. I've been sat here for a while trying to reply as to how players are treated, either by Watford or in the wider football world, but in all honesty I can't. I just keep deleting paragraphs. I don't know what or who to believe by way of stories, rumour or whatever anymore so I try to take most things with a pinch of salt. It feels like there has to be an angle on pretty much every thing now in all aspects of our lives. The reality is life can be pretty mundane so we used to try and make it more exciting by getting riled up at... people running around a field kicking a ball. Now we work ourselves up at the people who employ those people running around kicking a ball. The reason I posted what I did about Bayo was on the back of a few posts too happy to criticise Pozzo and the 'disgusting' treatment of players. Yet Bayo, who though surprised at leaving on loan when he did, doesn't seem to have too much of a problem with it himself. So why should we be angry? I don't know. As many players seem to stick around the club as quickly leave. It just doesn't add up to me that the players are treated like commodities or cattle while they keep signing new contracts at a club not known for paying high wages. How many have been happy to move to Watford from Udinese and vice versa this past decade if they felt undervalued, under used or, if we're led to believe by some, they're part of a human trafficking organisation. We follow what appears to be an oddly and bafflingly run club at times but I'm just not sold on the idea the players in the main are victims of some kind of abusive regime.
Depends how meddling Pozzo is I guess. He’d brought in Araujo and Assombalonga so possible he wanted to encourage his new toys to be used? Who knows.
He wanted a loan striker that we had no chance of signing permanently and an out of shape over 30 on a short term deal to thrive, over a big money signing on a 5 year deal? To what end? He does plenty of stupid things, but lets be realistic.
We've made some strange choices over the years, signing Fletcher for 5 years being a stand out, but this was a really strange one. Nothing Britt had done in recent season suggested he would be the answer. Made no sense at all
I think the main idea was that Araújo would be a monster who would bang in 10 goals, but that clearly didn't come to pass
Don’t get me wrong I’d much rather have a new signing who can do the proper number 9 role , which I hope we will by September 1st. I’ve always thought Bayo would do better in a front 2 . But Bayo isn’t as bad as people make out and he would probably get us 10-15 goals if he played all season. He gets into good positions and can finish , plus we haven’t seen him In the VI team structure yet and how he fits in .
I guess you've not been watching his pre-season form? https://twitter.com/mikeduffy_28/status/1682728715774566400?s=48&t=PXxOYHX2pW7nBNJ9xZo_JQ
I would, but the parents of the Peterborough players would not allow any footage to be taken. Child protection rights apparently.
I saw the palace match . He missed a chance as he missed a few last season . Is there anything else I should know about his pre season form that should influence my view?
I'm sorry but we should not be prepared to put up with a striker who doesn't have close to a 100% conversion rate, irrespective of how many goals he might score.
Excellent player. Scored a couple of tap ins last season before being desperately shipped off mid-season despite the fact we had no strikers and we'd just paid £5m for him (lol) and has now scored a couple against lower league opposition in friendlies, fully justifying his place in the squad.
Although, saying that, last year the general expectation was promotion. I'm now fully expecting a relegation battle, so I suppose he at least now more closely fits the level we're at.
They do. You can't just reverse-Holebas them off to Siberia. His comments basically mean he found out he the club were looking to loan him out when the Charleroi proposal was put in front of him. If he had said no he would have stayed at Watford.
Either way the deal to loan him out was arranged without him even being told, it's a terrible way to treat people. I don't rate him but fair play to Bayo for not holding a grudge and it sounds like he's enjoying it here.
Thought so. Which makes the pearl clutching above look a little silly, imo. No one can give a logical reason why Gino would jettison a big investment in favour of two strikers with no resale value, which suggests it was a Bilic decision. What has our once proud club become??? Give over
His pressing is honestly so good and he's very clever at trying to force opposition mistakes - there were a couple of examples against Ipswich that I've noticed him do a lot. It's not game-changing stuff but it's still something you don't see a lot of forwards doing. Had a few minutes this morning so made this brief video, most forwards when they press will just blindly charge at whichever opponent has the ball. Bayo always shifts his positioning and run to basically cut out the simplest pass for the player on the ball which makes things very hard for the opponent. As I said before, pretty much common sense and nothing ground-breaking, but you still very rarely see forwards do this!
I know only I and his agent think this; but start him for the next 20 games and I think we will win more points than if we start with Rajovic.
