Let me be clear from the outset. The "blame" for Watford's bad start to the season is the current team's, assuming that we feel the need to "blame" anyone. But I think it's important to consider the disappointing start to the campaign in the context of what has happened in recent months. In December last year, a decision was taken by Malky Mackay, Julian Winter and John Stephenson not to enter reserve competitions this season, and I think the vast majority of supporters understood and agreed. The squad seemed destined to be trimmed even more than it already had been, and with seven substitutes there were plenty of opportunities to give the few remaining over-18 fringe players playing time when circumstances allowed. Since then, all of those decision makers have left the club. Since then, our playing strategy has changed from aggressively cutting the wage bill, to aggressively selling a couple of expensive players and using a proportion of that money to put a larger number of experienced players onto the wage bill. Since then, the number of substitutes has somewhat surprisingly been reduced from seven to five. Chris Iwelumo is not Danny Graham, but there's no disgrace in that. Additionally, he's not someone I think Malky would have been looking at. That does not mean to say that Dyche was wrong to bring him in, and he could yet be a key man this season. But the result is that he would need time to gel in this team even if he was in peak condition. Unfortunately a few niggling injuries held him back in pre-season, and now the only match experience we can offer him is in the Championship. Carl Dickinson has a left foot, plenty of muscle and lots of experience in this division. He hasn't hit his peak just yet, but bringing him in was a no-brainer. Defensively he is the complete opposite of Adam Thompson and Lee Hodson. I rate both of those lads highly, but that variety can only be a good thing. At the very worst, David Mirfin is respectable competition at centre back. If disaster strikes and Tiny gets an injury, Mirfin is far more natural cover for him than Dale Bennett. Buaben is beginning to sound like a duff signing, but Graham Taylor made his fair share of those, as did Aidy Boothroyd, Brendan Rodgers and Malky Mackay. I was absolutely devastated at the losses of Cowie and Buckley, but on a more positive note Yeates and Forsyth have started better than I could possibly have hoped for. I don't think either has the potential to single-handedly annihilate the best team in the division in the manner Buckley occasionally did, but both are talented, and despite the team's lack of goals both appear capable of consistently making things happen. Going slightly off topic, Sordell is looking a far better player this season than he ever did under Malky. If he can open his account soon, he is surely one to watch for player of the season. And it sounds strange to say after a couple of gut wrenching results, but I think Scott Loach is showing signs of improvement from last year: it's Mariappa and to a lesser extent Taylor who have slipped back. We are not too good to go down, but I think this squad is too good to play well over the course of a season and still go down. What we are trying to do is in my view the right thing, but this team and this manager will stand or fall depending on how quickly we can get up to full speed. If we can have back the bit of luck and all-round striker that we have been deprived of in recent months, I genuinely believe that we are capable of achieving far more than mid-table mediocrity. In Dyche We Trust.
NNW, I know that most of the time we tend to agree and only occasionally see things differently. I think that you have written a good balanced piece here, one that seems fair from what I hear.I still think that we now have the basis of a good defence with a left footer in the side, my main worry though is about who is in mid-field to create. Maybe when McGinn is fit again we can look to him, although it would be unfair to expect him to turn the whole side round. There had to be changes in the way that we played without DG, but could we have relied upon him to pop up with another 20+ goals? Teams evolve, as under GT, but this team has to start from scratch every couple of years because of the nonsense in the boardroom. Stability is often called for and from my viewpoint even more now.
The revolutions under Mike Bassett and Chelsea's third best Italian of the 1990s prove your general point. But in fairness Graham was always going this season, and with hindsight I think Cowie would have left on financial grounds even if Malky stayed. So to an extent, revolution was inevitable this summer.
I think a lot of people are being very harsh at this early stage. We haven't put enough points on the board, but we played well vs Burnley, dominated vs Derby and at times gave West Ham a challenge. It's unfortunate about the reserve team, I do feel sorry for players like Hodson who perhaps would have benefited from playing in the reserves - now we have two less substitutes and he rarely will feature (unless Doyley or Dickinson are badly injured). I've been impressed with the new signings, Dickinson looks solid and experienced and Yeates/Forsyth are perhaps our best performers so far, below Sordell. We need to give Iwelumo more of a chance and we should reserve judgement on Buaben until he's ready to play. Mirfin's chance to prove himself will probably come in the cup. There has been a lot of promising signs so far, we went to Burnley and took a 2 goal lead and we played some good stuff against Derby and on another day would have been comfortably. However, if we don't get a win soon and start adding to our points total, I fear for the team's confidence levels. Excellent post NNW, definitely 'article' worthy. I agree with you on almost everything, (so there probably wasn't any point in me writing all that! ).
I am not disagreeing over the players who had every right to try and better themselves, but the wholesale changes in manager, Aidy, Rodgers, Mckay and now Dyche along with the board changes just do not make for a stable club. We are still in the dark about Baz and his real intentions. I am just thankful that GT is still on board, although it seems to me that he is finding it difficult to know exactly what his role is.
My impression is quite different actually French. In my view, for the first time GT understands exactly what his role is in the short term future of this club, rather than simply being the figurehead to prove that the tough decisions are being taken in our best interests. While a staunch supporter of Bassini's right to make changes, I think he saw first hand the potential for Bassini acting alone to be an unmitigated disaster. Since Winter left, he has taken a more public role, and in his own words has been far more vocal in the boardroom. The result *touch wood* appears to be a coherent if in my view optimistic strategy to achieve what Bassini set out to do in the takeover agreement.
You may well be right NNW, I was simply putting myself into GTs role. No financial input into the club, I would feel that I would have to try and show Baz the right way to go, but in the end defer to him as the owner. Timperley is in the same situation, experience of running Watford but again no financial clout. Franson slightly different in as much as he has money invested in the club, but he has never been that visible. I have been puzzled ever since Baz decided that he didn't need to bring his friends onto the board, but felt that he could get on with the existing members. Did he think that they would agree with his views all of the time as the owner, or did he think that here were people with far greater knowledge than him, and they talked sense.. I hope that it is the latter as that gives me hope. GT though is chairman, yet needs to agree with Baz what public statements he makes. For a man like GT to have to agree statements just doesn't seem right somehow. Maybe if he did start to say exactly what he thought would give us humble fans a greater insight into what is happening out of our earshot.
NNW, what a great article! Like Norway, i would rep if i could. There's nothing i don't agree with, which obviously means it's all right
Hopefully this will be redundant, but can someone turn this into a "proper" article if we don't win today?
It looks as if we have stability when compared with Coventry. http://www.ccfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10269~2426009,00.html
Excellent thread/article (delete as necessary) . Best I've read for ages. The posts afterwards too are very interesting and add to the article/thread too. I have to agree with everything you say NNW, including the posts after. SGT is clearly proving to be an excellent chairman, guiding this novice owner, in the interests of the club SGT had so much to do with bringing to where it currently sits (what an appalling sentence, but you get the gist?).
I've heard debt wise we've got less than most in our league but we just don't the revenue some do and teams like Forest have a owner pumping 10 million a year into them to keep the club going!
Good article. Let's just not panic yet. We'd have taken a point at Burnley before the game, Derby sounded like a freak result, and West Ham, we'd have probably expected to lose that one (talkSport ran a topic this week discussing whether West Ham's midfield is currently better than Arsenal's!). Let's see where we are after another 3-4 games starting with Cov this afternoon who seem like they may be there for the taking (famous last words!)
As do we, apparently http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/sport/9128677.Bassini_has_put___10m_into_Watford/
Cheers Hornette I think it's important to have some measured positivity. The striking situation could be described as a crisis, but our form certainly isn't. As I said at the end of the original post, we're a striker and the rub of the green away from being a real force in this division.
"A real force in this division", blimey oh Riley it will take more than a striker and some "rub of the green" for that to happen. Honestly we are pretty mediocre, there really is a lack of cut and thrust. I know we have to be optimistic, but this has to be based on some reality.
If Sordell was scoring goals, or creating goals for someone else, we would almost certainly be on seven points. It's completely realistic.
