Watford Fc - A Deeply Rotten, Toxic Club

Who people were quick to laud as an excellent signing after how many games...

Not saying he won't do well, but many of our supporters get overexcited based on very little.

 

I think we all owe them an apology. Everyone thought they were singing "sacked in the morning" towards the end of the Norwich game, but actually it was "flags in the morning".

 

Don’t forget lessons we’re learned in the summer we last got relegated.

 

This is why Pozzi were so popular under Zola. It was a mix of skilful young players that could have plausibly improved into a PL quality side and some borderline retirees that were so elite in their prime that at 39 they were still taking the piss out of journeyman hoof merchants. We knew the team style was fast counter attacking and some tippy-tappy grinding teams down. Now the squad is a load of talentless mercenary journeymen with no discernible identity. They completely lost their way.

 

See, it's this again, isn't it Tut - for the umpteenth time, and it's been refuted in detail so many times by so many posters, and yet no matter, you constantly smugly insist in dredging it up from the depths again - I would assume that that is what Jumbo was referring to with his 'repetitive rebuttals' line.

As we discussed the other day, you know you're doing it/it's purposeful, so you can hardly complain when it's remarked on.

 

Cheers. I didn't "vacate", I just wasn't on the forum for a few hours, not deliberate. As I say it gets a bit toxic on here and not much fun after such a poor performance and result. Ironically until they scored I still thought we looked most likely to win before it all fell apart. Best to let people express and burn out their anger/disappointment, I tend not to read the post-match match thread after a bad defeat. I've always thought my views as pretty balanced compared to the extremes. I thought it would be very tough to stay up this season and they'd need to play a blinder to keep us up with the squad we started the summer with. The Board have made mistakes and could have done better for sure and we are in a huge mess now squad and manager wise. I don't think we'll have another long run in the prem due to our relative finances. It's no mistake that the 4 smallest clubs financially are likely to finish in the bottom 5 of the league (assuming Leeds and Everton finish above Brentford).

 

You mean this question "Surely now you have to acknowledge it’s not just money, it’s about decisions, and bad ones at that?" ??
It's about decisions and money of course. Having less money is clearly a huge disadvantage and means you need to get your decisions that much better than your peers in order to compete. Newcastle for example can buy half a dozen players this windows for £30m+ and not worry if only 3 come off. We had to strengthen well with little funds and have failed to do that. A missed opportunity. The biggest worry is the lack of team spirit and togetherness and what state our squad will be in for next season in the championship and who will be managing us. I'm no great Pozzo apologist, I just accepted the size of the task ahead of them to establish us in this league and didn't believe they'd be able to do it again. I doubt they would make the same decisions if they had the chance to roll the clock back.

 

It' a amazing what two wins does for a club others on here had declared were "gone".
They should be concerned that for 50 minutes they were second best to a team that had lost 8 and drawn one of their last 9. The last 40 mins were awful.

 

I said something similar earlier, and it's very hard to strike a balance between keeping a promotion-winning squad together and ditching the ones who aren't good enough in favour of the new signings that need to be bedded in quickly. I thought that too many changes had been disruptive to team spirit even if it was what we needed in the long run to have sufficient collective quality to stay up. But actually on further investigation, only six of the side that won promotion at Brighton became regulars in the following season (Gomes, Cathcart, Watson, Abdi, Ighalo, Deeney) compared to eight that clinched promotion against Millwall (Bachmann, Femenia, Cathcart, Troost-Ekong, Masina, Cleverley, Sarr and Pedro - forget that some of them aren't good enough) yet the team spirit was much better in 2015/16, at least up to and including the FA Cup quarter final. I honestly can't work out why that should be...

 

I think it's partly down the excitement and positivity that the 2015 promotion generated. It was the first promotion for 10 years and expectations were limited given the 2 instant relegations before. Brentford have benefited from the same sense of breaking new ground this season. This time there is a complacent air of "back where we belong" amongst players and fans. I'm not sure the number of loans help either.

 

I think this is a time for clear heads and sound minds. Firstly fans need to understand that without the Pozzos they may never see PL football or a decent player at Watford again. We are looking like a PL champo yoyo team right now - a huge achievement for a club our size. We could easily be league 1 without Gino.

Equally Gino has to understand that Watford fans hate how the club is right now. The revolving manager's door, players who appear disinterested and incompetent and all the fake PR, spin, manipulation and bullsh1t to the fans.

Scott told us that the club is set up to make the manager's job easier. This is patently untrue. The manager's job at Watford is pretty much unmanageable. That has to change. In my opinion Scott has completely failed to build a well oiled fully functioning infrastructure at the club to maximise the manager's performance and he is destroying the culture of the club with his duplicitous corporate mindset. We need someone at the club who can create an effective structure that allows the manager to do his job and makes the players feel that they aren't just cattle being traded by some demented lunatic.

Gino went to Harvard business school, he must surely understand how to analyse what is happening at the club and come up with solutions.

I believe that if Gino enengages with these problems like a management consultant rather than a falling emperor he can find solutions to all of our problems. But the big question is does it matter enough to him?

 

Ah Cassetti.

Still thinks it’s strange we sold Vydra & Forestieri when we first came up, weird decisions.

Ah well, Vydra might be back this summer anyway.

 

I'm as thankful for the early Pozzo years as anyone, but I think the first part of your post is a bit drastic!

 

Gon 2 Muff m8

 

You’re talking about the team that didn’t turn up for our 2 biggest matches of the season . Rose tinted specs perhaps .

 

I totally agree with your first paragraph. This is what fans have to get their heads around, when they complain about the ownership (IMO). Watford are NOT Premier League in any way, apart from league placement. The finances, stadium and fanbase are just not Premier League. We cannot get away from that no matter how hard we try. Every season we are in the top league is a proud ambition realised. It's a big achievement.

Without the Pozzo's, we were/are unlikely to get anywhere the Premier League. They are very good at what they do. We've spent 4 seasons in the Championship, 2 of those ended in promotion and 1 ended in losing a playoff final. The other 6 seasons have all been spent in the Premier League. For a club of Watford's size it's a tremendous achievement.

Of course we can all moan a bit about how they do things and mistakes have been and continue to be made, but only if we go down and struggle in the Championship do I think it's time they should think of selling up and reluctantly go. We're a long way from that as I believe they would make us highly competitive in the Championship. At that level they are very smart and resourceful. The Premier League, even though they've had a good run at it, is getting harder and harder for them to achieve success, but that's primarily down to the ridiculous wealth that's swishing around in the top tier. It's very difficult to compete against that. But as a Championship club, I'd back them every time to give us a very good shot at promotion.

 

We could easily be multiple time Premier League winners without him. A massive achievement for a club our size.

 

But why are we now even second best to Norwich? They have even less money than us, but surely with all Gino’s resourcefulness we should have clear daylight between us and a team whose owner is worth £25m from selling cookery books? And despite taking some steps to survive by sacking Farke, they’ve openly said they won’t be buying a single player in this window, not one. The only money they spent in the summer was some of the Buendia money, who was by far and away their best player, who they got rid of. This is a team who before facing us had scored 10 and conceded 45 goals in 21 games.

We’re now worse than this team, so what has that got to do with the money swishing around in the league, when a team with less money than us that makes no attempt at all to stay up is in fact now better than us?

This is the problem with you refusing to look at the Pozzo reign chronologically, we’re clearly regressing to the point we’re worse than Norwich and no better then an Aidy Boothroyd championship team with no Marlon King and who ended up selling Ashley Young.

This isn’t to do with other clubs having more money, this is down to repeated poor decisions and methods that are no longer fit for purpose.

 

But this is just a reaction to a result. It's a granular level of detail. We beat Man Utd, does that mean we're better than them? We beat Norwich away only a few months ago. Too much is attached to the previous result and performance. We may go to Burnley and win, then somehow win the next game, everything looks positive again.

What I'm doing is taking a step back and looking at things from a wider scope. That's the way things should really be looked at when considering the state of the club.

 

Have you checked the league table? That’s the guide most people use to tell how good you are in comparison to another team. We’re currently two places below Norwich. That’s not granular detail, it’s actual fact.

 

We have two games in hand, but you're missing the point. I'm taking a holistic view of how the club is. We are in the Premier League for now. It's above a level we probably should expect to be and certainly above a level we would be if the Pozzo's had not taken us over. Like I say, if we win a couple of games in quick succession we're back in a good place again. The table is only meaningful after 38 games and your fate is settled then.

But if you want to carry on just reacting to events as they occur, that's fine, but that discussion should really be placed in the post for the Norwich match itself.

You have to ask yourself are we better with or without the Pozzo's? This is the big question, not they're crap because we lost to Norwich and base your argument fuelled by the anger of your post-match feelings.

 

If my Aunty had wheels she’d be a bike etc. if we win our games in hand, if beat Norwich, if we beat Brentford, if we beat Norwich and then our two games in hand we’ll have an extra 9 points and only be a few behind Brentford….

It’s all a total nonsense, points in the bag are all that matter, I’d rather be in Norwich’s position all day long, because it’s all very well saying we’ve got 2 games in hand but we actually have to win them you know, and if you’re completely honest with yourself how likely is it considering we’ve won 4/20 all season and have yet to keep a clean sheet.

But by the same token Burnley have 2 games in hand over us and are two points behind, so what if they win their two games in hand as well, or instead?

Meanwhile we’re scrabbling around for our third manager of the season, we’ve got no clue, no plan, at this stage we’re just thrashing around in the dark.

But it’s ok everyone, just look at it holistically, 8 years ago we got promoted from the championship, so what is happening now doesn’t matter because what happened a decade ago has the same relevance and importance as what is happening in the present day. Plus we’ve got two games in hand which we’ll definitely win, even though we don’t even have a manager, but everything will be fine. Trust the process because it worked five years ago.

 

Little Club Syndrome. To be fair to the owners, they tried to get the fans to stop thinking that but now they are relying on those to defend them. Amazing how things turn around.

I personally wouldn’t waste my time on it. You can’t convert a COG, they have to see it for themselves. Just like they didn’t think we’d be relegated last time. Either that or just let them troll.

 

So 10 days ago we were miles better than them and this week we are worse than them ? It's an over-reaction to a dreadful result. In practice we are about the same as them, though they have a bigger following and finished above us last season. We've tried to improve by making lots of cheap signings and as a strategy it simply hasn't worked.

 

Great post. Though if they wanted to make money from owning us they should sell as soon as we are promoted to the prem and receive considerably more money. I'm not sure what their business intentions are. Surely they don't still believe they can establish us as a prem club again ??

 

It's fine, you don't seem to understand the points I'm making so it's best to draw a line under it. But I think it's a bit naive to just react to the last result and base everything on that.

The big question, which you avoided, is are we better off with the Pozzo's or without them? That's really the essence of this particular post, with the subject being deeply rotten and toxic etc.

For me, we're in a bad place, but we're in a bad place in the Premier League. It's where the Pozzo's have placed us which is a massive achievement. Are they doing well right now? No, of course not, but can they fix the problems? maybe. We have to believe they will sort it out. Mistakes have been made, but none of us know what the financial restrictions are. I would assume quite severe because of the small investment in the squad. Finances drive everything.

To bemoan we are struggling in the Premier League is a bit churlish really. It smacks of entitlement. We are exactly where we should be. Any placement outside the bottom three is a big achievement for this club. We are bottom three in every area off the pitch. Financially, fanbase and stadium capacity is all bottom three. So why do we feel we should be better than that? Sure, our ambition should be better than that, but when reality bites us, we should all be accepting that's the way it is. We can hope for more, but we shouldn't really expect it.

 

Yes, things change? Do you criticise bookies for changing their odds after certain results? We are getting worse with no sign of improvement, meanwhile we’re scratching around for our 7th manager in 1.5 premier league seasons. Not a difficult concept to grasp is it surely, that things change over time?

 

Sigh, you’re right @GoingDown there is just no point engaging with this level of Cog brain washing. This one has hit every Cog cliche in the book.

 

Nah, I prefer a well managed operation with a youth setup, good sensible scouting and recruitment and not debt piled on debt piled on debt. I know you’re playing as I’ve known you too long but I do hope for more and believe it’s out there. My love for these guys saving us from a never-going-to-happen-due-to-Lord-Goldsmith administration has run dry.

 

But yet when there are those of us who have said along the way, that there was always different ways of doing things and better ways to spend money, we have been regularly been talked down to by people like…*checks notes*…oh.

 

This is a good question. What are they in it for? For the life of me, I'm not sure. I've asked that question too, many times. Maybe 10 years ago, when they took us over there was opportunity to establish Watford as a mid-table Premier League side, but relegation stopped that in its tracks. Since then a lot of clubs have had major financial investment, whereas we have not. This widens the gap between us and them. There are very few truly small clubs left in the Premier League now. By small, I mean in terms of financial resources. Burnley, Watford, Norwich and Brentford are the small fish. The rest all have wealthy owners. All billionaires.

In order to compete, we can be smart, but I think those margins have also reduced. We really need major investment in order to compete in the Premier League. Until that day, we'll have to accept, we're likely to now be one of those yo-yo clubs.

 

That’s just the entitlement talking.

 

All the while no Cog can answers why we’re currently worse than Norwich, all you get is ‘but look at what we achieved 8 years ago’ and ‘But we’ve got two games in hand that we’ll definitely win’.