I bet a lawyer can prove from the statistics before and after his tapping that he did give up - and would be able to cite his desire to go to Everton as evidence. You and I don't know though so let us let the lawyers - or those who do a deal bargain it out. We sacked him when his cumulative results were enough to prove our case - you do not have a monopoly on when it was best to sack him do you? I suspect your knowledge of what the "law" says is just that of a fan. If you were not "Cologne" who we know and respect then I think many people on here might mistake you for a wum with your recent criticism of Watford under the Pozzos. You now concede some of the positives they have brought but post after post of yours comes over to me as negative. Perhaps I am misreading your thoughs.
I must admit I did find it all rather amusing at the time when Everton came in, acting all Billy Big-Bollox with their new money, thinking they could just chuck it around and expecting us to just accept it. I thought the board played it well, and was showing we wouldn't be just pushed around by a bigger team... ...but hindsight is a wonderful thing and you kind of wonder we should have accepted it and moved on! Silva probably isn't worth all this attention but I imagine it will be stroking his ego that he is being chased so much. Saying it all that - the one thing it will show is we aren't a push around, and will be proven again in the summer when teams comes chasing Doucoure and Richarlison! They will only go for a price we are willing to sell at. I just want it all over and focus back on the season ahead - especially with the transfer window already open, and closing early (if only the manager transfer window was the same - would have avoided all this)
I think that you are misreading my thoughts Leo. Nobody is beyond criticism, not even the Possos. I do not waste my time on here criticizing the ownership structures of other clubs. That is something for their fans to do, and it would interest few on here - so I concentrate on my own club. Nobody wants to go back to the days of Bassini, or the days when freaks like him could buy the club for a pittance. Now I would imagine that the value of the club has increased immeasurably, thus making the future ownership by someone like him unthinkable. I think that most of the older posters on here would happily go back to the kind of stability we had in the Taylor-EJ years. Before you say that this type of stability does not happen in football anymore - it does in some other countries, and so most of my criticism is of English football as a whole and not just of Watford. In Germany most fans would be aghast at the possibility of someone 'buying' their club in the way it happens in English football - what is 'the club' in this context. You can go to the end of the line and imagine a situation where Watford is just a base (maybe only a temporary one) for travelling journeymen, owners, managers, players - if that is enough for you then ok. I became a Watford fan in a different era - the division they played in was irrelevant to that choice. I did so because it was my home town club - and even now walking the same route to the stadium as when I was a boy is like a kind of pilgrimage. Had I wanted glamour I could easily have got on the train to Arsenal, Chelsea or Spurs. I support Watford because I was hooked at an early age, and that hasn't changed now - but would I support them if it were the result of an objective choice ? I would happily pass on that one.
I am a pragmatist - rather than an idealist. I tend to live in the now and how it is. The GT/EJ era is gone and will not come again in English football. How other countries organise their leagues is of similar concern to me as you say other teams are to you. I do not like the Premiership or much about it and if I could turn the clock back I would - but that applies to much more than football. In the here and now though I am happy with the Pozzos. I accept that players and managers and maybe owners and stadia will come and go to suit the billion dollar industry that it is now. In that context though the Pozzos have done nothing but good for Watford. Why do I care more about who is the manager this year than who are the players? If it takes 6 managers in six years to achieve what we have then I have no problem with that. I certainly will not take criticism from some uninformed idiot of an Evertonian whose own club has gone through managers like a dose of salts in the last few years and who cannot understand his club did wrong to tap up our manager. Someone who claimed to come here just to understand why we felt compensation was in order and then when he was told by about a dozen of us proved all he really wanted was to challenge that fact. If you visit the Everton boards they are full of loathing for us over this and to agree with him rather than defend our owners strikes me as weird.
That’s a completely preposterous suggestion. You can’t legally prove that a manger supposedly gave up and therefore breached his contract, did he have a ‘not trying’ clause? His desire to leave Watford could well have caused an issue within the dressing room that in turn lead to a drop off in the players performances, but you can’t somehow translate that into a contract breach, as it’s purely subjective opinion, and the manager doesn’t cross the white line. Ultimately the players have a responsibility to the club to give their all on the pitch, by your twisted logic, clubs would be able to sue players for half arsed performances supposedly breaching their contracts Managers can ‘lose’ a dressing room for all sorts of reasons, and it invariably ends up with them being sacked after a run of poor results, as is the case with Silva. If Watford could (or can) prove with tangible hard evidence that he breached his contract by talking to us without their permission then they could have terminated him for that reason - assuming his contract had a clause that specifically prohibited that.
I can accept everything in this text Leo, but with reservations about the last sentence. Am I suddenly 'breaking ranks' or guilty of treachery because I question our ownership on some issues ? Everton's approach was appalling, just as Silva's compliance in it was appalling - but we should have sacked him as soon as we knew about it regardless of results. Unfortunately our Evertonian visitor is right in as much as 'not performing' is not a legal catagory. As soon as the subject of subsequent 'results' had any influence on our decision to sack him then our legal case fell through. On the subject of the Pozzos - are you trying to tell me that they are immune to all criticism ? As a supporter I have the right to both praise and criticize when necessary. Would you be happy if the only think left of Watford in this whole set up is the name ? I do not feel happy supporting a club which has more foreign born players than Man.City or Chelsea, or any of the other clubs in the top 6. I am also not happy with new rookie managers every year, who firstly have to learn the language, and whose only redeaming grace is that they have bought in to the Pozzo system. I would rather that there were a different way of going forward - does that make me a traitor or something ? - just get off your moralistic platform, and come back down to Earth.
Yes - it is called his contract of employment which requires good faith - which he clearly breached. You clearly have no head for numbers but try looking at the points per game under Silva pre and post tapping and it will not be hard to convince a Court that he was not giving value for money. Points per game is all the evidence Watford need. The fact he also told a couple of players he would take them with him was bound to unsettle the dressing room. You can go on denying the obvious for as long as you like but it is not us you need to convince but everton need to convince the FA - good luck to them on that. Yep - and Watford will show exactly that happened due to Everton's tapping. Ifs and buts. They held him until he showed he wanted to get us relegated - which he came close to achieving and would probalby have succeeded had he not been fired. You are an amusing guy. On another board I view your fellow Evertonians started with the same spurious arguments you try but they have now given up and accept we will get compensation but that it will all be hushed up to spare the blushes. When you offered £1m in compensation two or three weeks ago you admitted liability. QED.
You clearly don’t understand the basics of employment law. You can’t ‘prove’ a supposed breach of his employment contract on the basis of results, that’s a performance issue and would only be contractual if the contract contained specific performance related clauses, otherwise it’s just a standard termination and he’d be due whatever compensation formed part of his contract (which is the ongoing issue btw). The simple legal facts are, that on performance alone you simply couldn’t prove a breach of contract in relation to the supposed tapping up, whether you choose to accept that fact is irrelevant. You’ve then gone on to conflate the legalities of his contract with the complaint to the FA. They’re 2 completely separate issues, IF you have HARD EVIDENCE that he was tapped up, or that he’d supposedly spoken to players about coming with him, then that’d mean that we’d breached the rules, and would face sanction for that. Which Everton forum is this? Please share as I’d be interested to read it..... What evidence is there of the £1m offer btw? And unless the lawyer who made it was a complete idiot it would have been made without prejudice and would therefore not be a legal admission of guilt at all btw......
This is where you and he have both got it entirely wrong. Please read my lips. He was not sacked for being tapped up. He was sacked for breaching his employment contract to act in good faith and give his best - that only became apparent by January. The Pozzos never said he was sacked for being the victim of a tapping - he was sacked for his actions in switching off. Results are everything in that context. Pozzo is a Harvard graduate lawyer - I think he understands more than we do about what case will hold Nobody is immune from criticism. There is so much you criticise though and from the above you say you are unhappy with that I wonder you still bother with Watford. I don't mind having foreign players - and am surprised someone who does not apparently believe in nation states has that as an issue. As for the choice of manager I trust the Pozzos choice - but I would not call them rookie managers anyway and am not sure that language has been a barrier except with Mazzari. Only redeeming grace they have bought into the Pozzo system? Really - so 4 years in the Premiership - the first time Watford have survived even one is not a "grace" then? Stop being so emotional. I have not mentioned morality. I have not called you a traitor. I have just wondered why someone so full of anger at Watford still supports them - but I do not care who you support so don't think I do. You have made it clear you wish the world were different to how it is. All I have said is I don't - am I not allowed that opinion? Finally - I DO think that - almost - all that is left of Watford is its name - but more importantly - its fans. Not its owners nor players nor staff etc.
You bore me now. You don't listen to my answers - you think you understand employment law when it is clear you do not and you refuse to look at facts so there is zero point my trying to have a dialogue with you. We will get an answer in the next few weeks so will see who was right then. If Everton do not pay any compensation come back then and I will admit you were right - fair enough?
If you think I am going to want to see you turning up there you are very mistaken - here was too much. As a clue though it is a Watford forum being visited by intelligent Everton supporters.
I support them because I was hooked as a boy, it was not an objective choice, and I am still hooked now. But I am capable of also being objective about the club I support - if the criticism comes over as being 'full of anger for Watford' then that is only your interpretation of it. I love my club, and want the best for it, but I also want it to retain some of those characteristics which bound us all to the club in the first place. I have nothing further to say on this theme because it is becoming obvious that you will twist it and turn it against me in some way.
What sort of person do you think I am? I get fed up with you impuning my motives. I do not twist anything but just comment on the fact you are so ready to criticise owners most of us would have given their right arms for six years ago. It is your right as I have said but if you think fellow supporters do not react to people in crowds around us at matches who only ever moan you are wrong. Look back at yor posts and count how many times you say positive things about the Pozzos - except when pushed. Still as you say we will end this one here since you no longer wish to be civil but to accuse me for reacting to your own comments.
I think that all of us Watford fans have our own history as to why after so many years we still want the best for our team. It is fair to look back and remember the days when we wondered why we were stood on a near empty terrace getting cold and wet, and yet the following game we would be back just hoping that it would better this time than the last. We were rewarded for our loyalty when we had the GT/SEJ era, and the amazing rise through the divisions. Back to the worry and disappointment when that golden period came to an end, and almost the end of our club as we flirted with financial meltdown. We have been rescued from that by a Italian enterprise that has years of experience, and from everything that they say they also want what we do, a successful club. Football in England has changed for many clubs, although not all. Promotion from a lower league is something that so many fans hope for in August, but by the end of October they know it will not happen this season. There are many things in the money driven PL that I don't like, but I am sure that it will not return to the olden times unless the income from TV dries up. Silva is just another name on the role of people who spent time at the club, and he didn't achieve very much, rather like a player who was sold to us as the great new hope, and just never produced to his potential. This sort of failure with players/ managers will always happen whatever club you are at. We can have our say about what we think, but really we have to just hope and trust that the owner, who in our case spends most days at the training ground, sees a much larger picture than we do.
I debated perfectly well with you until you kept ignoring fact and repeating yourself. Not sorry to see you go though. In all this I have not once called you by any form of swear word but you have several times so others can decide what sort of poster you are. You sulk when you don't get your own way it seems
I do not recall that I have said a great deal about the Pozzos on any thread until now. You have insinuated that my loyalty to the club is at question - you say 'why do I bother following Watford' - I have been doing so since the 1960s - a lot longer than the Pozzos or any of the other actors around the club. There are pluses and negatives, which I have pointed out. Which products of our youth scheme have come through in the last 6 years - apparently it has dried up. The Pozzos have given us financial security, a 4 sided stadium and a place in the Premiership - all of which I am gratefull for. I have said this in a previous post, so what more do you want ? On the flip side I have questioned whether the Pozzo model can really take us any further. They can go on sending us bucketloads of budding starlets from the south, with the instructions 'take what you want and send the rest back', and do this with a succession of managers who are rookies to the Premiership - eventually it will backfire. I miss having a team which plays as a collective unit, and having players who may, one day, become legends in the future as players like Blissett and Mooney were in the past. You can construe whatever you like about my criticism I am as much of a fan as you are.
That’s totally untrue. I haven’t sworn at you once throughout so don’t tell blatant lies. The rest of that is pure irony, you kept repeating the same ill informed nonsense about employment law and wouldn’t listen to the explanation of the reality, not only from me but from some of the Watford posters. It wasn’t a case of a difference in subjective opinion on that particular point, it was a matter of fact but you simply wouldn’t have it. You chucked your teddy out not only at me but also at one of your own.
Your last post called me an *rse so that makes you the liar. Still bored with you - do as you promised and go away. You are not a Watford fan so go and bore your fellow Evertonians
