Val Sacked

He's doing very well - squad is bottom 8 squad in terms of quality, is thin on numbers and needs succession plan for 2 high performing players who are 34 and 36.

Furthermore, he fabricates in press conferences several times per week to protect his disgraceful boss and henchmen who are running the playing squad into the ground. Pozzo could not ask for a better manager in these circumstances.

If Pozzo hadn't shown himself to be a complete fool historically then I'd say Ismael is bulletproof even if we drift down to 18th. Still, I suppose we can't rule out an act of childish petulance at the end of the season if we finish poorly.

 

I'm not remotely calling for Val's head, what possible difference would it make? And, to what, anyway, of course - we're hardly in crisis at this exact moment.

That being said, I do find it very hard to work out what style of play we have, or are attempting to have, with well over half the course of the season gone. Yesterday was a good example of how limited we appear, and @Supertommymooney expressed it well in the match thread:





We're mostly not at all exciting to watch, nor do we control possession or the tempo of games in general, even when we do actually manage a majority of the ball (mostly achieved by, as we saw yesterday, endlessly passing it slowly from one centre back, to the goalie, to another centre back, back to the goalie, out to the full back, to a centre back, waiting till they're closed down by an opposition forward, then back to the goalie, repeat ad infinitum).

It mostly just looks like a very unsophisticated 'give it a good go, lads' sprinkled with an occasional second-half smattering of the players who fancy themselves a bit giving us the odd body feint, disguised pass, or pirouette, on our way to attempting a shyt floated-but-low-height ball to no one in particular from the wing. Sometimes players hare about a lot and tire themselves out without the ball, sometimes they don't. Our press is still pretty piecemeal and uncoordinated, most of the time, despite the repeated soundbites that emerge on the subject from the playing and coaching squad.

Yes, we can look at the overall quality of players for part of this, but A) we actually have quite a few jinking little playbois in our squad, theoretically, still, but for some reason they have collectively largely lost the ability to implement those silky skills that they're possessed of, and B) isn't there supposed to be at least some role for coaching in terms of improving bad players and bringing players of a lower quality up somewhat by creating a system that elevates them as part of a whole?

Of course, there's also some mitigation that must be mentioned in being forced to continuously field some kind of striker that is absolutely dreadful to the point they can't really actually play football, and also never score a goal.

 

Should have kept Manaj. Currently one of the top scorers in Turkey, well ahead of players like Zaha, Batshuayi, Tosun, Balotelli, Pepe, not to mention Dennis who scored a grand total of 0 goals there.

 

I recon he'll resign in the Summer when Kone, Martins, Asprilla and Hoedt all leave.

 

Hoedt turns 30 in a month, and clearly has a high opinion of himself and his pedigree (not entirely incorrectly, at least compared to anyone else we boast) and sees himself as an elite player. I could very much see him being easily seduced by a bid from any European team that's 'big' in their respective country and competing at the top of their league/for silverware, regardless of where that league is ranked internationally.

Whether that's now or in a year or two's time is up to a mix of him and whether the Stability think it represents a last chance to get a real fee for him.

 

Think he'll walk in the summer when the board don't give him anything to spend

 

I think he'll be sent to McQuarie in part-payment when we run out of cash.

 

I’m seeing growing criticism of VI since Saturday’s defeat. But is it fair?

I think the squad he’s been given is a bottom 8 squad, all bar 2 or 3 players. So this is where we should be, looking over our shoulders at those down the bottom.

In fact our home form places us joint 16th, which is about where I see us. Where we’ve done well is that great run of away results, and I know people won’t have it, but IMO, we’ve been incredibly lucky to have got so many good results over our recent away run.

Personally I think Val has taken us as far as he can. He’s got players very fit and generally they do keep going right up until the end. I’m impressed with our injury record so they must be doing something right in training. Val is good enough for this season but he can only do so much. Recruitment has been a massive let down and that’s key to everything.

Our number 9 strikers are chronically bad. Recent form has seen Bayo score twice in his last 16 appearances (a brace at Preston) and Rajovic has scored just once in his last 12 league games. That form is appalling.

Val does sound like a broken record in his post-match summaries though. He is honest but keeps emphasising the same problems. I just don’t see any incremental improvements.

Maybe if we had a strong number 9, like a Kiefer Moore, things would be different.But we don’t, and VI does have to take responsibility in that as he was heavily involved in signing the woeful Rajovic.

I think this season was one where we were always going to sail close to the wind with all the financial limitations Gino has put the club under. I’m still looking for those 3 more wins though, and I do expect a decline in form. Come May I do expect us to be closer to the bottom three than the top six.

 

Not sure if this answers the original question, but I think getting Dennis in is the one thing that most resembles IV treatment. If he scores some goals between now and the end of the season, it will be the injection into the veins that will save VI from the boot, as it were.

Agree with Hornetboy about Kieffer Moore though. Possibly a sharper needle to administer with.

 

Realistically, this just doesn’t happen as it’s like setting fire to a large amount of money. If it’s ever reported that a manager has walked then it’s probably because there is a big emotional connection between the club and manager and it’s done to save face, but will almost certainly be a sacking. Then you got situations like Klopp which is still rare and likely due to external factors like health. Val won’t walk, he’ll just start putting two keepers on the bench like the rest of them if he wants out.

 

Absolutely no indication Val will walk, it seems he's been given more control then most Watford managers in recent years. We are a young team with potential, we will get better. This season is the reset fans were crying out for.

 

Only the gullible believe this is a reset. It’s just an exercise to function on the lowest possible budget in order for Gino to squeeze out enough cash to put a dent in the financial mess he’s created.

I cannot believe some have bought into this being a rebuilding project.

 

Amazing the number of fans who think this a building project. Pozzo loves these fools.

 

It's a culture reset nonetheless.

We all know we're skint.

I agree Val is performing above expectations with the squad we have.

 

Depends what you mean by culture reset. The player attitude I will give you but that is the bare minimum all football clubs should expect.

The people running the club haven’t changed. They are just potless and thus powerless and can no longer continue their policy of firing managers and pursuing their own goals which may or may not be alligned with the club’s well being.

 

We literally just came through another window. 3 players out, 1 in.

The only way is down.

The ironic thing is, that Pozzo's choice/reality to not invest in the team anymore has led to more stability, which in a sense is bringing its own rewards.

If we still had lofty goals, there would be far more player turnover (which we are crap at doing well) and manager churn.

 

There would be little point in changing the manager as the new boss would have to deal with the
poor strikers . We are very one dimensional because of this as we cannot go long and mix things up
as Bayovic cannot get good possession and bring others into play high up the pitch .
There was a similar if not the same issue a few years back regarding Trondre. But at least we created chances
then only for Trondre to put the ball into Row Z

 

We haven’t really had a cultural reset, we’ve just fallen into line with 95% of other football clubs by not going through 3 or 4 managers a season. The obvious upshot of this is the players don’t give up after a couple of weeks because they know the manager will be changing. I mean, who knew?

Although that is of course a good thing, it’s only as a consequence of how the club has been run by Pozzo up to this season, we’re skint and can’t afford to pay up three different contacts per season, spending millions on severance, the well is also completely dry in terms of manager options, we don’t have the money for a decent one, we don’t have the pull or squad over other competing clubs to attract a decent up and coming one (and as above, we can’t really risk it either as we don’t have the funds to keep paying them off).

So it’s a cultural reset if you want to squint incredibly hard and see it is that, but in reality it’s just all of our chickens finally coming home to roost. Pozzo basically doesn’t care any more, doesn’t have any money any more and has painted himself into a corner through his behaviour over the past decade.

 

We're not even in line with the 50% of Championship clubs who have changed their manager at least once this season.

Had Ismael been doing a terrible job and actually had us typically in the bottom six as others on here worried about then no doubt he'll have been sacked as well.

Maybe part of the reason for the change is that for the first time in ages Pozzo has actually made a sensible managerial appointment to begin with?

No, it can't be that - it would involve having to give Pozzo credit for something.

 

Errr, we were 1 point above the relegation zone and had won 1 game in the last 8 when we extended his contract?

As usual, absolutely laughable boot licking nonsense from you. Tell me more about how Rajovic is a good signing again.

 

Yep, it's bizarre that after a turnover which included some extremely successful and high profile managers, we've decided to finally settle for an absolute mid tier man.

Imagine if we'd 'hit the reset button' whilst Nigel Pearson was still here?

 

That was still relatively early in the season though (and when performances were better than the results); not long enough to suggest it was "typical".

Remind me though how you thought Pozzo extending Ismael's contract was also a mistake...

 

It was after 10 games, the same amount of time that Edwards got exactly one year earlier. But yeah, let’s give Pozzo some credit!

 

yeah but his preseason!

 

Having spent the season protecting his boss telling us how much he loves a small squad, the pillock is now moaning about wanting to abolish cup replays because his players are tired.

 

You know, you could always not throw away the home game by making 5 totally farcical substitutions and then we wouldn't need a replay, but, you know...

 

Yeah and after that point it was clear that Edwards did not have a good relationship with the board and had us playing turgid football, and Ismael had a more positive relationship with the board and had some promising signs.

Sure, why not when he made a good decision for once?

 

I will actually give Ismael some criticism here for his complaining about cup replays meaning players are more likely to be tired, but more because he didn't play a lot more of the fringe players against Chesterfield.

Even with our small squad we still could and should have played far fewer of our key players in that game.

But it's also true that cup replays are a joke and should generally be abolished.