I thought we shaded the half without chances and Ipswich edged the more open second half. Not a game marked for excessive quality due to a surface that cut up and wind causing clearances to get miscued or to go little difference. I liked the look of Polter - he grew into the game from a hesitant start to look like a very good back to goal forward. He definitely needs willing midfield runners or a second striker. The defence looked good barring the two goals, a header going wide and a shot off the post. They blocked much, cleared a lot and looked compact. The whole team contributed to this. Ale slightly more wasteful than usual, Phillips a bit less effective. Hoillett more consistent and kept going. Overall, a touch less energy and quality than Brighton but this isn't the game to hang fears and paranoia on. We were decent for an away showing. I heard an interview with Mick McCarthy who said they played better than Derby and Middlesbrough and lost so perhaps got their luck today for a win they didn't necessarily deserve. A touch magnanimous although I think a draw would have been about right.
Still don't think the back 5 are promotion quality. The shoring up at the back came at the cost of goals scored. We have been changing Managers too often for far too long. I think we should have stuck with Ramsey, now I hope we stick with JFH for a couple of seasons at the least.
So everybody pretty much agrees that Ale needs to be rested for a match? Hope he's not played all through Christmas and gets completely worn down from it
Agree with this statement and it should also be noted that they have stuck by Mick McCarthy through thick and thin and have let him build on a very modest budget over the past 4 years or so. As each season has gone by they have gradually better.
Difference being both Norwich and Bounemouth started to re-build their squads in League one and built on solid foundations in a similar fashion to Swansea, Watford have been building in a more mish-mash way over the past several seasons and it has clicked. We on the other hand, have a philosophy to offload as many players as possible each season and bring in as many players to replace them and hope that if we close our eyes tightly and put our foot on the accelerator that somehow we will achieve our goal. Whilst changing the mananger willy nilly. We should thank our lucky stars that we are so far up this league and be grateful for our current position and enjoy it and while our club is run in this manner we should not look any higher.
Spot on. I can't comment on the match itself. But the long-term pattern and repeat in it is obvious. As are the causes. It really is time for a change. In ownership. Fernandes out.
It does not need to be Fernandes out...perhaps just less meddling....and a little less expectance FROM US. If Jimmy doesn't get us promoted this year...why not accept it, all I want to see is that he is building and developing... So when we go up we go up as a team and a club, and we stay together as a team and a club
Does he not flip from one extreme to another like someone suffering from bi-polar disorder. Consolidation, promotion, rooney rule, sack manager, repeat. Nice guy for sure but not chairman material.
I agree with all of that except that I do think it is time for Tone to move on. He has had enough slaps in the face to learn the error of his ways and yet they are constantly repeated. There comes a point in every supposed successful business man where he becomes more reckless in a desperate bid to salvage his credibility and his fortune. When we do manage to get it right to the end of the season, you can bet your last dollar that it will all be blown away on a couple of spectacular rolls of the dice the following season
Watford are a bit of a one-off in the way they have come up. Everyone complained when the Pozzo family took them over but they also own Udinese from Italy's Serie A and Granada from Spain's La Liga. They have achieved success, particularly at Udinese by scouting all over Europe and South America, bringing in unheard of players who have been successful at Udinese and then sold on at massive profit. Many of Watford's players are unheard of over here but have clearly been scouted in the same way and you can guarantee most of them will be good quality ball players, mix that into a team with some quality players like Deeney and they've just got it right. Quique Flores is also a coach who has been 'scouted' in the same way as the players, it just seems some of these clubs are light years ahead of us in every facet...
Good point , we do seem light years behind in every department at the moment particularly scouting .... Very poor
Saw a good post on LFW from Clive. I won't copy and paste the lot but the gist was this 1) In terms of history, success, fanbase we are about where we should be (roughly 35th) 2) Our facilities and infrastructure are about 60th 3) Our wage bill is about 15th and recently has been higher All the time both the fans and board focus on 3 thinking it will improve 1. Get a new midfielder/striker/manager and we'll do well. This is bollocks. Any club of our size which punches above its weight sorts out 2 first (Swansea, Watford, Leicester etc). Fernandes has managed to blow approximately £250m to see no improvement in 2. If 2 is improved, 1 will improve in time.
I saw Udinese beat Chievo Verona 3-2 away a few weeks ago. The didn't look great to begin with but as they warmed up a very neat team, moving the ball quickly with purpose. Like Watford. I would imagine the Pozzos will focus on Watford for a bit, because of the PL money. I can only see them getting better, Flores is obviously an excellent coach. Why are we the only club not to get a 'new manager bounce'? I have no problem with JFH, right kind of choice for us, and our problems lie much deeper than first team management.
Because the manager of the club isn't the problem. The same key problems within the club exist as when Fernandes took over and he's spunked the GDP of a small country to see us in a worse position than when he took over without addressing them.
Most steps forward (rather than a brief spell of doing better than the norm) take several years of focus and stability/continuity. We reboot every year to 18 months. If everyone associated with the club did the boring perseverance rather than the childlike attention deficit disorder approach then our odds of stepping up and staying there would improve. Sounds simple but we prove it's clearly not.
What I been saying. I think the Board should have given Ramsey more time, they should give JFH time. But get relegated or even not manage a better position than we are in now, many supporters will want him gone too. It's time to give a Management team some time to sort it all out unless they are playing Green as striker or something really daft, but will they get if we have a bad period? I doubt it.
