Having watched Forest Green a few times when Rob Edwards was there, they were effective with a long ball game, but very basic. I did think he might change things a bit when he came to Watford and had better quality players. Seeing this Luton side makes me realize that not a lot has changed with the approach, but maybe that is what can win you promotion.
It'll be a quiz question on a sports quiz in future years: which manager did the double in a Derby but for different clubs!
Edwards wasn’t our manager for the 4-0. Mind you easy to forget ! Probably having fit committed players who fit his style helps .
Wilder has to confront Gino and ask him wether he should go now or be given time to build a team Asprilla did more in his short time than Pedro and Sarr and Louis is NOT the player we were all hoping he would be Next season we should keep Bachman, Sema, Porteous, Houdt, Kone, Ngakia, and Asprilla from todays team, spend what it takes for a goalscorer and see who can step up from the juniors We have 7 games to sort out the mess and blood some of the promising youngsters
There were a few people on this forum who agreed with the decision to get rid of Rob Edwards after only 10 league games. I shall be interested to know whether they still hold the same opinion? The players did appear to like Rob Edwards and to buy into his approach. I am not convinced that they have been fully committed as a team under either Bilic or Wilder. Personally I believed that Edwards should have been given more time - despite his mistakes. He was accused of being inflexible with his tactics and playing players out-of-position, but the Watford ownership knew how he liked to set-up his teams when he was appointed and he was not given the players to implement his favoured formation. Ironically, the new Watford signings in January would have been more suited to the way in which he likes his teams to play. Edwards was accused of not reading the game well and not making good use of substitutes, but he is still learning his profession and he needed to be given more time. There were some poor performances (especially away at Blackburn Rovers) and the team appeared to lack a clear identity, but Watford did manage home wins under Edwards against the teams who are now in the top three positions in the Championship. Watford was probably a more difficult club to take over as a head coach than Luton, whose players were accustomed to playing in Edward’s preferred formation. Watford had just completed a disastrous season when they were relegated from the Premier League and it was clearly going to take time to install a new culture. Edwards took over Luton who - under Nathan Jones - had an established style and ethos and also appear to be fitter than the Watford players. Edwards said that he just needed to make tweaks to the playing style rather than wholesale changes. He has taken Luton up to 4th position in the table even though their squad – on paper - is far less talented than that of Watford. Only Burnley and Middlesborough have gained more points than Luton since Edwards was appointed there. Recently I read an article suggesting that Gino Pozzo reacts too emotionally when making decisions. However, I do wonder whether Edwards’ dismissal was also partly as a result of a power struggle between Edwards and Giaretta. I hope that Gino Pozzo will now take a back seat and allow Ben Manga to take charge of both the managerial appointments and the recruitment.
"The team that was the team won the game" Hit the nail squarely on the head. If he is still with us next week, I'd suggest that he simply tells the players that he will only select those who are prepared to play for each other - and pointedly drop those who didn't do that today.
I suspect that there was an initial agreement between Pozzo and Duxberry to get a young manager in, Edwards, and let him build the type of team he wanted. This was the reported situation when Edwards was appointed. Pozzo had a change of mind when he became aware that this might not be a quick fix to getting into the PL and the big money. Duxberry has been very quiet on the subject, understandably when he wants to keep the best part of a £1M coming in to his bank account each year. I also suspect that Pozzo wanted to keep costs down, and the obvious way was with players salaries, so the type of player willing to come to the club was not the same standard as Capoue or Feminia. When the club was first acquired by the Pozzos, very good players were brought in, but at a cost. Is Gino prepared to pay to have good players arrive, or will he still want to find inexperienced talent that might be profitable after a season or two? I think he has to make up his mind, and stick with his decision.
And when it was reported Giaretta might be losing his job the suggestion is Duxbury was pushing for this to happen but Pozzos wanted him to stay and seemed to blame Edwards for any suggestions things weren't going well - in hindsight a mistake I guess. Of course it's all unfortunate Edwards has gone on to do well at them lot - bit like Potter leaving was supposed to be a bad move for Brighton but they've been doing just as well whilst Potter struggles at Chelsea. All I would say is whilst there are issues on and off the pitch that need new owners won't suddenly guarantee instant improvement on the pitch and high quality players coming in who play well each week... Unless you end up like Man City! Much like changing managers doesn't. Davis is understandably getting a lot of stick but didn't hear many complaining when he joining given previous reputation. Of course he'll probably go elsewhere and do well - where he isn't seen as the main man expected to get goals which has never been something Davis has done.
Difficulty is that each time the Pozzo's do something to got us the edge, the rules change, the loopholes close. I can't help but think we need to "get lucky". That's going to be difficult with others getting wise to our scouting network and we're not reaping much in the way of rewards for our assets - especially our youngsters.
We probably just brought better players or as you say got lucky that they came good but we still had some real wastes of money too . It’s not like the Pozzos had 6 years of buying just great players then suddenly turned to being rubbish at it . It’s always been a bit hit and miss. Just no one was so bothered as we were a Premier league doing well. Now people look back and say “how have we fallen so far “ ? Which for now I think is a little bit extreme in thought process . I mean we did actually get promotion 2 years ago but had a couple of poor under performing seasons which hopefully will be rectified soon but it wasn’t like we were top 10 regulars in the PL.
The fact the last promotion season was behind closed doors doesn't help. It means fans watched two relegations in a row effectively, and now a mid-table Championships side, all off the back of an FA Cup final.
Yes fair point and certainly have wasted a lot of money whilst other fairly similar clubs have progressed .
