Never a dull moment these days! Of all the happenings between coaching staff, sponsors, players to-ing and fro-ing only TD is the major surprise. The others things are all par for the course when new owners come in. Worried? About success on the pitch? Nah, not really... that will come. Whether the club will keep its soul remains to be seen.
Does this answer a few of the questions? Certainly sounds as if the hand to mouth existence could be from the past if it works. http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/sport/9828050.Duxbury___Players_won_t_be_sold_to_pay_bills_/
Duxbury is being very clear--confirms how we thought the Pozzo model would work, and makes clear that we are in a new ball-game. This is very different from the idea that "nothing has changed , Watford have always been a selling club...." Of course the other side of it is that players will be moved on not just when they are "at the top of their value" ...but also when it becomes clear (in the judgement of Duxbury and co) that they do not in fact have much future value....and for the same reason.. to make way for younger players who might be expected to increase in value. So a bit more pressure on the established players and our Academy players.I think a high turnover of players will be the order of the day in this model. Not much room for your Gibbs, Porter, Doyley in tne Pozzo set-up. Interesting suggestion that Bas stopped paying the bills when he knew he was leaving. Let someone else pick up the tab. Nice one Bas. I would still like to know what GT thinks of all this. Why does the WO not ask him?
Nicely written piece Chris a great deal of which I agree with. It is interesting to see you use the term "New Watford" in the same way that Tony Blair used the "New Labour" idea. In his case he knew that the traditional party was out dated, clinging to ideals that were no longer fit for the modern country that people hoped to see. I think that the tie between fans and players was broken generally at the time that the minimum wage was abolished, and players stopped travelling to games on the same bus as the fans. GT could see that there was a danger of this disconnection, so introduced the opportunity for the two groups to meet up at fans forums and players doing things in the community. So far the noises coming out of the club suggest that this interaction is something that has been noticed and should be continued. If it actually happens in this way so much to the good, but however things progress there is little that we as mere fans can do except hope and enjoy what looks like being a new chapter in the thriller that is WFC.
I wonder if that was the catalyst for Scott Loach's move to Ipswich? Having had first hand experience of our critical fans who had ties with the club, he wasn't going to hang around for the New Watford version...........
The big difference between the New Watford and the old watford where player were sold to kee the club alive is economies of scale. The network trawling for new players is much larger because it is working for three clubs. This makes it more efficient because if Watford don't need a right mid-fielder, say, then Udinese of Granada may. Increased reveues make it more affordable to bring in more expensive players who can still make the club a profit from a greater fee out than in. I think this is probably one of the goals with whichever new goalkeeper we get. They will be expensive in terms of wages but if we can showcase them then we may get a profit from them. Economies of scale also allow players to be loaned at no real cost to the organisation. They can be loaned within the organisation. In addittion it wouldn't surprise me if we develop a relationship with a club lower down the food chain in the same way that Granada were/are linked with Cadiz. As for the soul of the club; this could gp either way. We could be a Lamborghini within the Audi group, or an MG within British Leyland.
Your economics are fair enough NZ, but at the end of the day will the Watford fans buy into what is put before them? When we were in the PL our average attendance was somewhere around 17,500- 18,000, I forget the exact numbers. To increase the numbers above that will take some doing, in fact it would keep the question of do we need an East Stand still up for debate. In these hard times people will only go for entertainment if they can afford to do so, families rightly should come first. Of course we have seen that in Italy and Spain, two countries hardly riding on economic booms, successful clubs getting the support they need, with enlarged grounds and football that is attracting the fans. I am hopeful from what I read that we can embark on an era when we can not only progress, but stay as a self financing club, run without getting into the mess as others have done, and create a vibrant atmosphere at all of our home games.
Nothing has changed as far as the Doyley scenario is concerned. We always try to sign someone better, he always outplays them. The only difference is that we will in theory be signing better players.
North--what I mean here is that in the Pozzo set-up it will be unlikely that any player will stay with the club long enough to rack up the hundreds of appearances that players like Gibbs, Porter, Doyley etc have. Players like that are very much the heartbeat of the club, the ones we have a special affection for, but we are not likely to see such as them in future. Players now will be moved on "at the top of their value" , or if unlikely to make much value, moved on for a new prospect, more likely to be an appreciating asset (from the viewpoint of the Pozzo "family" of clubs). So yes, we are in an era of "New Watford" and the comparison with " New Labour" is quite apt. A new type of football business in a world of globalisation of scouting, development and marketing of players for profit.
