I have a question for Mr Zola......if Tiny was offered a big contract somewhere else and he is as well thought of in Zola's mind as he says he was....then it begs the question, why didn't we offer him a big contract too, after all we got somewhere in the region of 3 million for Mariappa so money should have been available. Not pleased with this at all, our best players have gone, the academy downgraded to cat3, young and up and coming watford players forced out and swamped by foreign loanees who have utterly no allegiance to Watford FC. Three bad results in one week, two on the pitch and one off
I have been reading plenty of comments suggesting that players, new and existing, do not look fit. Could this be the result of passing the ball around in training without the actual physical work required the ensure a player can last 90 minutes?
Maybe this is a reason, some of the players have come in late and might not be fully match fit. But, surely, they must do fitness work at the training ground too.
http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/sp...5898.Taylor_and_Zola_on_defender_s_departure/ Hmm, Zola wanted him to stay but "believes" the club has a policy of only giving one year contracts to older players. Whose policy? When did this come into force. I don't buy it. Just makes me think that Zola has no influence on transfer policy whatsoever. The new loanees better start working out fairly quickly or Zola's going to get a lot of stick over this decision.
Thats the continental model...but do they present him with options for him to pick from or do they loan him in a squad that he has to sift through. There is a difference. And does that extend, as in this case, to taking away players the club dont deem necessary even if he,as he admits, actually wanted to keep that player.
Well they haven't actually presented him with a full 'squad' to sift through, so I presume the former applies. When you say "as in this case", I take it that you are referring to Tiny? I don't particularly see that that case fits the category of "..taking away players the club don't deem necessary.." - yes, GZ wanted to keep him, but Tiny asked to leave did he not? A bit unfair to blame the club for that.
What I was getting at was that the number of players brought in is almost a whole squad's worth. If Zola has to sift through them to decide who he wants to play that's going to take time - much smarter would have been to target players he thought he needed, which is the sort of thing that happens on the continent. If Zola has to play all of these players on a rotational basis or somesuch, that's even worse. Re Tiny, you're right, he asked to go but only because he wasn't being offered much of an extension by the club which slightly undermines Zola's claim that he wanted him to stay OR demonstrates that he has little influence in these things. There are rumours floating around that Tiny was one of a list of players the club made known that it was willing to listen to offers for too....I don't know how true that is.
I agree with all of this. And I know that bashing Bassini is the easiest thing in the world. But even if we look at transfers in isolation, does Zola have any less control over transfers now than Dyche did in January?
We do not really know the reasons for bringing in such an unmanageable number of players, it is possible to conjecture several different theories as to why they all landed in such a short period. Does have GFZ have much say in who comes? I suspect not. Reading about what is happening at Liverpool, it would appear that players going there may well arrive without the manager getting much of a say. This has been described as the continental model of player recruitment, with the manager being a coach of who is provided rather than someone responsible for all that is going on in the club.
To me, it sounds like he tells them what positions he feels he is lacking (such as a left back) and they supply a number of options from their pool of players. He trials them, sees who he wants, then will send back who he determines is surplus to requirements! I hope this is the case, and he will trim down the side in due course - preferably sending some of the loaness back, and maybe let a few go that are not needed from our own squad of players! As for the 1-year contracts for over-30s. Almunia and Hall are both on 1-year contracts, so does seem this is their policy, and is a sensible one if they feel they are only short-term measures before finding a long-term solution. It's a dangerouns game as there is always that chance you will lose them if they have had a blinder of a season, but also is easier to move on if they haven't had a good season, or lacking the match fitness required for what should be a high-tempo game we play!
