As the dust begins to settle I wonder what Watford fans would consider to be a success for this season approaching. For me it has to be an improvement on what Dyche achieved and a clear sign of progress. Promotion? Bit too soon me thinks, but that 's what the new owners have stated they want in the long term. What do others think would constitute success?
like you, it will probably be too early for promotion (though i have but a small wager on lol)...but top 8 would be success, and something i believe Dyche would have achieved...
The Pozzo family may have caused some short term disruption but their vision for the future is not something we can not achieve. They are obviously not new to the footballing scene. In thier statement they clearly want us back in the Premiership. However, I am sure they realise this is a very competitive league with many strong teams having the same objective. I think that next season might be a bit of a transitional one for two reasons. Firstly, there will obviously be some changes to the squad. Secondly, a new manager might take a bit of time to get things together. Moreover, with the new pitch a new style of play should hopefully take place. For me success next season would be in or around the play offs. This is no small ask, we all know this league is an incredibly tough one, I personally think the toughest in England. Change will not, unless by miraculous good fortune or amazing management, happen over night. Zola has little management experience and none in the Championship. We should be open minded and view the new owners over at least a few seasons, as they said they are here for the long run, respect our local influence and youth development academy. The future looks positive but in my opinion, this is more of a long term project. If the ground also gets finished and ticket sales are up this will also be beneficial for the club. Viva Watford. It is just a bit scandelous that Dyche has gone. However, the Pozzos are making the right noises so far, let us see how sucessfully this develops. It is long term stability that I would love to have.
I won't agree with the decision to sack Dyche unless we go up this season. But to match or better last season's league position would count as some sort of vindication.
Having been around at the start of sixty seasons each one you hope that it will be good. Entertaining football, skillful players and even flirtations with a higher league. The vast number have been disappointing, but come the next one the hopes resurface. Most of the seasons the club has been in the financial mire and relied on Benskins, pigeon fanciers and people with a bit of cash to put in. Invest would be the wrong word. The coming season could be different with what appear to be some serious backers with a plan. Unlike those earlier years when we survived from hand to mouth my hopes centre on what will happen off the pitch as well as on it. Somehow it seems like a new beginning, when we have to start thinking in a different way. Results on the pitch will have to be good or I suspect the manager will be moved on quite quickly. We may see some players destined for greater surroundings than the Vic on a wet February evening. We will see some players who would struggle to be a success up the M1. I suppose that I would like our club to be in the top league again, although I quite enjoy playing in one that is so unpredictable. Whatever the season turns up I will be very happy if we don't just try to buy success and finish up as a Rangers or Portsmouth.
For me, a successful season would be: good guest beers in the pub, decent conversation before the game, enough quality or incident in every game to keep me awake and a finish not near enough the bottom to be a worry and not near enough the play offs to be taken seriously if the team doesn't look ready for Premiership. I may be alone in having reservations about wanting to be in the Prem. I know it lets us get on the pitch against top players but we'd only ever be fighting to survive and there are so many things about the Prem that fly in the face of everything I love about football. Not sure I want WFC to be tainted by it. ps We have had a bibulous evening with entertaining guests so this may not make total sense...
Put very simply, by this time next year I want to be looking forward to a season of promise in the Championship with the likelihood of attacking, attractive football with players dedicated to the club, measurable achievement off the pitch in a timetable for the improvement of the ground (i.e. Main Stand), a strengthening Academy (still the envy of many Premiership clubs), GT back associated with the club in some way to show his approval of the new regime and finally a positive feeling that if we were to be promoted that, this time, we would have the necessary structure, finances and players to stay there....... I remain to be convinced that the new owners will deliver this....but then I was not convinced that SEJ and GT would deliver what they promised in 1977...........
it does make sense...lol...but i think getting in the Prem is worth it..if we're ready for it. I think that now, with these new owners, and their machete, we may be ready for it with the aid of loanees etc...at some point..if not this season, then a season in the near future..
With the loss of Deeney.....someone who I think could have scored 15-20 goals this coming season....I would be happy if we could emulate, maybe improve a little, on what Dyche has done. I'm just afraid that Zola is going to completely flop..... I don't mind us stagnating this season if it leads to greater times in the next few years to come.
Success, for me, is GT's goal of us being a top thirty side. Even then we are over-achieving given the size of the town and the proximity to big London teams. Maybe I think this way because I grew up watching third (and for three seasons, very poor second) division football. Whilst it it fun to get promotion to the Prem every so often I would hate us to become a team that is forever in the lower third of the Prem. What happens then is that some idiot decides that what is needed is an injection of cash to make the team one that is in the top third. Things fall apart quite soon after that - see Charlton, Sheff Wed, Leeds, Southampton etc etc. Obviously I don't have to suffer the problems of supporting a Prem team - cost, difficulty in getting tickets, games being played on any day at any hour of the day, but I do remember the difficulty I had in getting tickets to a game against Sunderland in the Prem when I was visiting a few years back. Having said all that, perhaps I am not properly understanding the model that the Pozzos use. Perhaps they are correct in thinking that a town the size of Watford can have a successful Prem team. I would have no problem with that. I would enjoy it very much.
I do not think I can judge success at the moment, until we know who is coming in for definite as manager and what players he can attract to little old Watford. I will reserve judgement until the start of the new season
Given that dyche has been let go and success for me if we had kept the status quo would have been beating last seasons achievement i cant set the bar lower than that which means the playoffs are a minimum payoff for the loss of dyche and straight promotion is close to an expectation. The only reason to upset tyhe applecart so strongly so early is to make wholesale changes that enable the club to function on a different level on and of the pitch. I'm guessing that the pozzos have an idea to change a large portion of the first team playing staff from day 1 otherwise why change from a successful (in our frame of reference) setup? At the moment it would be progress to have a manager though!!!!
Maybe I'm being a bit negative but, other than avoiding relegation, I think just having a club to support is already a good season. If you take a look at the division I just do not see a huge number of teams we'll finish above even though we did well last season. Firstly I think dyche did a great job making us difficult to beat but there is no doubt we overachieved. Yes we hopefully now have some stability but with the exception of some talented loan players we are in exactly the same boat, needing to bring through youngsters. When you see Brighton buying Kuzcack and getting Bridge on a years loan you get an idea of just what we're up against every season no matter who is in charge. My concern is fans turning against the club when we aren't in and around the playoffs at Christmas. I still consider this highly unlikely.
As far as I'm concerned, at the minimum, the only possible outcomes that could be describe a successful season are: 1) A better-than-eleventh finish to the season; 2) Absolutely no flirtation with the relegation zone during the entire season; 3) Home and away victories against whichever club SD takes over as manager; 4) Admission prices and ticket purchasing in line with those in Serie A Anything less would be failure IMO.
Bloother, I'm glad your question didn't ask what my (our) expectations are for the coming season so to consider what would constitute success is a different matter all together. For me, success at any time for Watford is to stay solvent as a business and to remain in the Championship. To stay solvent is more important to the Town than most would realise, Towns without football teams at this level become nothing. As an example, Oxford & Cambridge spring to mind, lovely places, great Unis but very little collective soul. Remaining in the Championship is success in my opinion, but that's based on our previous setups with limited finance, small gate returns and the inability to attract any players of real quality. One thing Watford isn't and once again in my opinion, is unlikely ever to be, is fashionable or a desirable place that would get the attention of the 'players representatives', after all it's these people that move footballers around. I had hopes last season of a mid table finish but my expectations were a strong challenge for 17th, I wasn't a fan of SD but he earned respect and did really well. A bit like OFH I have been supporting Watford all of my life from wherever I have been in the World so have seen a few ups but mostly downs. This Season my hopes are the same and I will give the Italians until January to bed in and I will park any expectations until I see how they do. Just one more idea of success; Graham Taylor comes home.
This is exactly what I'm worried about. People will assume last season is the minimum requirement as opposed to a really good season which we should aspire to somehow match with a view of moving forward.
I don't think any Watford fan should ever be disappointed about being in this division. But the owners have gone out of their way to raise the expectation levels, and if that backfires they will have caused the discontent. Last season was a success, and that was down to the manager. By sacking him, the owners are saying both that 11th isn't good enough, and that they don't think Dyche was the man to take us forward. If Zola takes us to 12th, that will be considered a failure by some, merely because they will believe that Dyche would have done better.
It would be counter productive to not expect success. If we do worse, then it's disappointing....naturally.
The season will be a success if the new owners, by their actions, deliver on their recent statement and demonstrate that the club is in good hands. The Harefield link and the Academy structure must be shown to be valued. Our own Academy youngsters must not be marginalised in favour of developing players from elsewhere. At least two more players need to come through from the Academy to be first team regulars. We need to sell one player for in excess of six million pounds.We need to stay in this division , and if possible improve on last years league position. We should be left at the end of the season feeling that we have made progress on and off the pitch, that we have seen some entertaining games and some new stars, and that we are still "Watford" . We should be able to feel that long serving players and staff have been respected.
Spot on North. There seems to be a slight contradiction in what the new owners are saying and doing. If they wanted to progress slowly and in a sustainable way way then they could have let Dyche have a go at proving his credentials. He has more experience of life at this level and has proved that he can work within tight contraints and he knows the Academy set-up. But instead they have jettisoned Dyche in favour of a big name, and in doing so (IMO) have raised the fans expectations. Given Dyche's dismissal I am looking for an improvement on last season. As soon as I saw that Zola was being touted as our new manager I had little doubt that the new owners were dreaming of the Prem (just think of how all that money could help all three clubs). So I await this season with interest. COYH PS, does anyone else hate the use of the term 'Project'?
