Wrong. Almunia - Ours Hall - Ours Pudil - Loanee, though he'll be ours in January Casetti - Loanee. He was signed for us this season and they loaned him to us. Why I don't know but he might as well be ours. Hoban - Ours, homegrown Chalobah - English loanee from Chelsea Ekstrand - Loanee Yeates - Ours Hogg - Ours Deeney - Ours Forestieri - Loanee, ours in January The three subs were loanees, one of which is signing in January. So no, it's not 11 loanees it was 5 who started and 3 subs. Isn't the rule 5 loanees on the field at once? If the rule is the squad OK.... but either way with injured players coming back (that we own.. the list is very long) and players signing permanently it should look a lot more respectable. We're not a Udinese B team, sorry that's just not true. Loads of teams have foreign players, quite a few play more than we do so maybe you've just been reading Martin Samuels terrible journalism or something. We're kind folk in Watford To be fair our ground is pretty **** right now. But if anything closes the ground it'll be ice. Our underheating is fine but the area around the ground gets icey and they call it off due to health & safety.
I already detailed the loan players in your last game, earlier in the thread. There is a five loan players in a match day eighteen rule, but it doesn't apply to foreign loans, hence the suggestion that it's a bit of a pisstake to have eight loan players featuring in the fourteen that play.
I've already replied to this argument before you made it. Having loan players isn't immoral or wrong. All clubs use the loan market and IMO convincing a player that your club is worth coming to on loan is part of the skill of management. Many clubs buy players with some rich sod funding it all, but at least they are paying for those players and the money goes to another club who might need it. It's a fair deal. The dodgy part is owning two clubs and moving players between them to suit your needs, it's ****ed up. Just because you're going to sign them in January, that doesn't make it any less wrong. It's not the loan status people have an issue with, it's the fact you're building an entire squad from nothing without paying for it, just by moving players from parent to feeder club. As City1904 says, it could really ruin the lower leagues. We could eventually have feeder clubs in the lower leagues like Spain do, it'd be farcical and this has to be stopped early or it'll get worse.
You know, I do actually agree with you. But these days, money is becoming less and less relevant. I'm for regulations to keep things fair, as far as is feasible in a league system like ours (hey, it's never going to be MLS fair) but as far as I see Watford are not a major problem. We're just doing what we do to be successful... even the playing field. Why should Watford continue to be the chumps? I can see why you'd think of it as instead of "one team gets his money and the other team gets his player.", it's "one team gets the player and the other team pays for them to have it." Well that's the wrong way to look at it. Do you think the owners just ****ed these players out of nowhere? They were all paid for by and money went to clubs who owned them beforehand. As far as I know, there won't be any mixing and matching... it's a talent pool of players that the owners can distribute. They scout the players, and it's them who buys them. Udinese are like us a team who without these owners are a fairly small club.... we're not leeching off of Udinese at all. What it boils down to is that the Premier League is highly lucrative and somewhere down the line Watford and it's fans, not Udinese, Granada or the owners, will have to pay our fair share..... maybe even more than that eventually. These days it's hard for me to see us as getting "something for nothing", in comparison to billionaires who give their clubs players for huge sums..... just like it was nothing.
Who cares who Watford are playing at the moment.? There team line ups have been within the rules and good luck to them. They are doing what works for them. I myself dont see this fixture as any harder than any other championship game especially when playing your rivals. Its time that we played a good game against a top team and the fact that Watford will attack us Should suit Hull City down to the ground. It may well be that apart from Aluko, Rosenoir comes back in for Brady. More for his defensive abilities than anything else. I am looking forward to a very good game, end to end. Crystal Palace were put to the sword by us recently so lets do the same again to Watford but this time with an end product. Macadonna hatrick anyone ?
This whole B team thug WILL ruin the lower leagues, and foreign clubs/owners will exploit it. Watford will be the catalyst for destruction, unless the FA act swiftly to stop it more clubs/owners will catch on. The biggest farce here is how someone's able to own two clubs, that's just ****ing ridiculous!
You're right, Bob - but the 'authorities' will, of course, let the situation develop to a completely out-of-control point and then set up a committee to look into the matter!
Unfortunately the FA cannot do anything about it, it is a FIFA rule that all foreign loans are classified as a temporary transfers so technically Watford only have one loan player in their squad but they still must abide to the six home grown player rule in their match day squad. This is only becoming a problem know that Watford are doing well, it didn't appear to be a problem when they were in the lower reaches of the league. It has been reported that the pitch is in perfect condition, there is no frost here but they have undersoil heating anyway.
I hope the players aren't making excuses about the weather and the state of the pitch. Anybody know how many fans were taking down there? I'd be happy if we got near the 1K mark.
Looking at Udinese last night they will be recalling some of the Watford loanees in Jan. They certainly need them. Interesting article by Colin in todays yorkshire post on loan players.
Obviously it's hard for smaller clubs to get by these days, but I don't think that makes it OK to own several clubs and it's not like Watford are the only small club left. There are still plenty of smaller clubs in our division who also struggle to get by. While swiftly moving to tackle the bigger issues like thinking of the most obscure places to host tournaments, and banning the wearing of snoods and removal of shirts.
We are not asking you to be chumps you can still become a successful club without been a feeder club for someone else. How can you not say you are leeching off of Udinese and Granada? You clearly are, how many loans do you have from them both? Its another way to get round the Financial Fair play rules. A club can't make losses, so what do they do? They loan players from another club who doesn't have huge issues with this rule. If you had these loans at your club and not on loan you would be miles over your wage budgets and Watford would be under a transfer embargo. I don't dislike Watford i just don't want us having B teams in our leagues, and i want the lower leagues to remain competitive and interesting as they have done for years.
The were lots of Watford fans that were very concerned when the Pozzo's took over. But now, what they see are owners that want to see Watford in the Prem whilst not being financed by debt, but being financially responsible. They have the money to pump in, but prefer to run the club by utilising their player resources instead. Now I've got used to the idea, I find this approach no less ethical than a club that is being run on the basis of increasing debt, sometimes, up to many £300m with Man Utd. Forgive me if I am wrong, but I believe that The Tigers debt was only cleared after some sort of cash injection by the owners, perhaps £40m/£50m. Is it a loan, or is it a gift, I'm not sure, it doesn't really matter as really, shuffling debt about isn't exactly on the moral high ground when compared to moving players around. Maybe you just have a rich benefactor who will never ask for the money back, back it would hardly be fair to other clubs if the only way to survive, is by attracting rich benefactors. If I am honest, initially I would have been more thrilled if some type of sugar daddy came along giving us, or loaning us, £50m instead. It is what we dreamed of. But the Pozzo's are football people and they want to run successful Clubs. They want to see small financially stable Clubs beating the big boys who can only sustain their high position by having massive debt. That isn't such a bad philosophy. I feel that the fans of any Club that is not living within it's own means (it's operating income) doesn't really have the right to criticise.
They shouldnt be allowed to own 2 clubs. This is avoided here by the fact you can not own 2 sports franchises that are in the same sport. Before you say they are not in the same country you also can not own an NHL team and own a KHL team either. It is against league rules. You can be a rich **** who buys a team in every league. Like that Mark Cuban guy who owns an NBA team has put bids in for like 3 MLB teams (dogers, mets, ?) and is rumored to be in for one of the top premier league teams now.
I think you're perhaps missing the point a little, this is not a Watford issue, it's a football issue. A team should not be able to get to the Premier League by borrowing a team from a higher league in another country. The analogy you've made with us holds little water. We ran up debts when we got relegated, mainly due to piss poor management of the club during the period we were in the Premier League, but the money spent was to cover historic debt, rather than funding a return to the Premier League. In fact, following relegation, we spent **** all, we had nothing to spend. Football should be about putting together a team, getting that team to work together and winning football matches to progress. It shouldn't be about borrowing a team from a more successful club, just to gain promotion.
Look, you don't like loan players. Will it make you happier if we sign them? We're going to do just that in January with those we fancy. We can take our pick from the communal fruit garden of talent. Reject the ones we don't like the look of - the over ripe, the bruised and the plain maggoty. It makes no difference at all whether we hold their registration or not. Their money is still coming out of the same pot. They're still employees of the same company. So you gripe about people owning two or more clubs. How are you going to stop it? Even if you banned it Europe wide somehow, how can you stop a club being bought out by a Brazilian or a Russian owner? I really don't see it can be done. For worse, money runs football nowdays and when we go to football we're watching a paid for entertainment show. Watford fans have suffered for a few decades now, to be frank, under mainly a grim, labouring bunch of pink-faced journeymen hoofers. And, like most clubs at our level, the ocassional academy gem or lucky discovery - who as soon as he starts making a few ripples and scoring a few is instantly sold for £750k to some struggling Premiershit outfit having a desperate fling of the dice for a few goals. Now we're watching Argentinians, Czechs, Spaniards, Italians and Swiss internationals banging in a hatful of delightful goals, doing sole of the boot dragbacks and leaving lunking defenders sitting down dewildered. See the recent Dirty Leeds 1 Watford 6 to understand why we are (mainly) just ecstatic with this state of affairs. Instead of worrying whether this year we can keep our necks above the relegation line and what players we're going to lose in January, we're sniffing around the top of the table and there's not a team we're scared of. The Watford fans are just sucking it up. I long ago accepted that there's no sincerity or integrity in professional football. These players are wearing yellow shirts with the Watford badge, play at our ground and call themselves Watford. That's about all you can ask for these days.
Your last paragraph seems to ignore the fact that your team is borrowing 5 players from the Premiership, including 2 from Man U, to help you get promotion. No doubt your Club is benefiting from the friendship and favours between their two Managers. Is that fair? Do your rivals whinge about it? You have also loaned Cameron Stewart to Burnley, who are playing one of your promotion rivals, Watford, next week. Feasibly, he could score the winner, doing you a favour. Why is borrowing players from the English leagues, more morally correct than, borrowing from an unrelated league, where there is no chance of such indirect assistance. If Hull, or any other team, plays only their own players, paid for with their own money taken from their own operating profit, then they have every right to complain, but not otherwise.
If you came on here regulalry you'd know some people like to overreact. I agree we have too many loan players for my liking, and it could hamper our chances of doing well if their parent clubs want them back. But we were skint. Also Cam Stewart never gets a game at Burnley, he's currently warming their bench.
Once again, the issue isn't loan players. Generally, a loan deal means that someone has beaten off competition to a player by showing that his club is more ambitious, better coaching methods, etc etc. That's not happening at Watford, they're just taking players with no competition and no fees to pay. The thing people don't like is Watford having a sister club that they can take players from, free of charge, without having to negotiate or convince anyone, or even attract players to the club. They're sent to play for Watford just because. It's farcical. No matter how many you make permanent in January it doesn't matter. It's not the loan status that's the issue.
You prat! That smacks of someone who cant see past the end of his nose. We have a brand new pitch and it is more than capable of coping.
