Hodgson - Our new Saviour

Confirmed with Ray Lewington...

 

intersting headline.. (Yorkie thinks cynically)... .I could talk myself into believing anything nowadays with Watford!

 

Is this possible? Well yes... but a big ask...

 

Re Stuart 10.37: Why would we Watford fans want to set up a 'Phoenix Club'? Check out record over 10 years of Pozzo ownership: two automatic promotions, one play-off final, six seasons in Premier League and a cup final.

A Watford fan RIGHTLY defending the Pozzo's

 

In response to Stuart 10.37: Offering sympathy to Watford fans, I can assure you that I for one am constantly amazed our owners keep a club whose entire history to the 1970's was based in the lower leagues, solidly in the Premier League or the Championship. The structure set up means managers come and go but everything else within the club remains perfectly stable.

Anon

And another one

 

Well he would not have been the first person I would have thought of for sure. However would have an unknown, without EPL experience have been a better bet in our current situation? I doubt that he will bring about an exciting team judging by his time at Palace, but if we want to stay in the league then he has as good a chance of achieving that as anyone else.

 

My brother in law is a palace season ticket holder and he said that he brought defensive stability...and was not particulalry negative about him.......

 

I think this is quite astute. If Hodgson does achieve safety, and I think he has every chance, then Gino/Scott can plan for a new appointment in the summer without any issues (except from the meejah, and who cares about them ?) . I suspect Claudio was recruited with that in mind anyway. Whilst the meejah always criticise our 'model' , mostly because it isn't 'English' , the clubs hierarchy wouldn't be changing head coaches if we were blindingly successful with one of them and didn't fall away after a successful spell. They tried it with Gracia.
The question we (fans that is) might ask themselves is... Do we want to try to stay in the EPL, improve enough to be more or less assured of staying ( Wolves, Leicester , arguably Palace, Leeds Soton, ) which means a lot of struggle, and accepting it won't be continuous, and some quite tormenting days ( Citeh every time, liddypool moslty + outrageously biased referreeing on too many occasions) or do we want to be quite successful in the Championship , with more wins than losses ?
For me , the improvements in the ground, training facility etc and the standard of player says the former. Certainly a whole host of clubs 'that deserve to be in the top flight' (what a load of b*ll*cks that is) would happily trade places with us. 3/4 of the Championship for sure ,and quite few below that.
If only we could keep hold of the genuinely brilliant youngsters ( Sancho, Gavez) instead of losing them to the money machines, I would be even happier !
COYH !

 

Is Boris changing careers?

 

Some common sense used here.

An experienced Premier league manager with a good track record of keeping teams up.

Will know a lot of the players and has strong knowledge of European players too and how they work.

Also isn't on a long term contract so if we don't keep Roy on won't cost some big pay off.

 

Best we could have got. Let's see if he can work miracles.

 

We dont need miracles just an organised defence that know what they are doing

A few less misplaced passes in midfield would also help

 

I think the poor passing has to be eradicated.. really sloppy

 

I wonder if this is simply a short term thing or if he kept us up and impressed would we keep Hodgson longer ?

Guess not.

 

They are always short term things under the Pozzo's

 

Some farmers buy in lambs to "bring on" as they say. Buy young and cheap, and hope they will fetch a good price when it is time for them to move on again, wherever that might be. Others breed their own, and often you will hear them say that the effort and cost of "bringing them on" is not so profitable. Of course if you have thousands of sheep, economy of scale means losing some is not as drastic as being the small hillside farmer.
Football models work in similar ways, but there is one big difference. The sheep, or in this case the footballer, can say I don't want to stay at this club any longer. The grass is greener, the rewards are higher elsewhere. So the farmer/owner has little choice but to move him on, and maybe get a lower price than he expected. So he becomes a little poorer than he hoped, and the asset he has sold goes down on the new owners balance sheet, making him a little richer.
Farming is a gamble every year as you do not know what price you will get at the end of the day. Football club owners take the same risks because of all the variables involved. Take a middle of the road approach and hope for safety, or throw many eggs into the pan and hope for a super omelette, rather than use them all to create scrambled eggs.
Watford are the hillside farmer, not rich enough to stave off the bids for their best, but better off than the small holdings in the lower divisions.

 

People have noticed it says “manager “ rather than head coach .

Already hard at work.

 

Roy The Giant Chicken , i suppose who else would take such a sticky job ? Is he the oldest manager appointed ?

 

If you breed your own then you can partially protect against them moving on too early Frenchie. In the past at Ajax players always 'moved on' if they were good enough - but normally when they were 25 or so and had become fully developed players. The tendency today is for players to want to move on at 18 or 19 before they are ready, and before it is good for them. In order to protect against this the club now signs it into all contracts that if players move through the academy then they are required to play at least 3 years as a full professional before moving on. This makes sure that the club gets something out of them, that the transfer fee is higher, and that the player himself is ready and that the eventual move will be good for him.

 

Don't know about that - but I'm just glad that he's not our player-manager...