I agree, a debate is preferable to insulting each other. Saying we should be embarrassed seemed a bit insulting- and I am happy to accept that the critical comments are as a a result of misinformation, not stupidity. The loan situation, ah the loan situation. As you might recall, it all came about when Ian Hollowhead went rather over the top before Palace played us - neatly forgetting that at the time Palarse had MORE players on loan than WFC did ! Only difference, WFC's came from abroad - seemed xenophobic to us. However, the most important thing in all this is to realise that our owners are NOT carpetbaggers or greedy opportunists, or rules exploiters ,but simply took the opportunity that presented itself and have owned a football club for over 30 years-just not in blinkered UK. When the FA/ Football league actually woke up ,they did the usual thing of a knee jerk reaction. The fact is that in the future( ok not a fact yet) multiple club ownership might well become normal. Why, because it works. I note that THFC have no loan players in the club, just 8 or 9 at other clubs. Is this the basis for such strong feelings on the loan system ? Separately, there seems to have been quite a degree of nastiness in the comments from both sets of 'forum' fans after yesterday. I have no idea if it is historical resentment, or a reaction to the events on the pitch- not something WFC have seen much of this season. Not healthy though. I hope it will cease as my experiences this season have been really positive at the clubs I've visited Everton, Man City,Leicester,Villa , even Villa in their dire state) and at home too. Both sets of fans seem to think the other side's players behaved badly. Usually in these situations, we have a useless referee to blame- and yesterday was a classic example- linesmen too. It doesn't feel great to battle for so long and have a good result undone by incompetence on the part of the officials( offside is still,offside!) so maybe that fuelled WFC' s antagonism. Fortunately we seem to have a head coach with good respect for the game and the players- no whinging at the ref, decisions, play acting or surrounding the ref. Spurs also, although it's always easier when you have won. The odds on Spurs winning The Premier have shortened- a bit insulting in a way as it appears to be based on the poor form of the other likely suspects. Maybe yesterday was a good sign, the grit needed. However, if Spurs are in with a shout, then, bizarrely, so are WFC ! With average luck WFC would be 5 points better off, and Spurs 2 less. (WFC should have beaten was,soton,Everton, WBA,, lost to bluff and chelsea and drawn yesterday.) Hope this goes some way to improving the level of discussion.
I've always enjoyed reading and posting on this board and wasn't going to carry on the discussion too far as we're not going to agree on everything and it looks like it's fizzling out. However, you did ask a specific question about Jokanovic so I will answer it - he was on a contract till the end of last season. They sought to renegotiate and neither party could agree terms. Obviously we're going to try and defend it but of course, from the perspective of others, the whole situation doesnlt look great for a club seeking to bring about stability! Now - if you could go on a winning streak we'll try and beat Arsenal, City and Leicester though in exchnage at least a point at your place would be nice
Nobody has ever thought of stirring up a hornets nest before - good one Everybody should fancy thrashing Arsenal - if only we could. I ask you to tell me how you would feel if our owners had been billionaires and had simply bought the players they needed. The fact that they have clubs in totally different competitions is not relevant - would you object if their other team was a Rugby team - of course not. People got bent out of shape thanks to papers like the Mail who have hated Watford since we turned down Jeff Powell's choice of darling Bobby Moore as a manager and went for Graham Taylor- they fuelled the Watford are breaking the rules (incorrect|) argument. On managers, we have effectively had one per year. Many clubs are like that and many worse. Zola in 12/13; Sannino in 13/14; Jokavich in14/15 and now Flores. Garcia had a heart attack and we had a temp for 8 days. Jokavich did not hold us to ransom but he wanted to earn top Prem money when he would have been a Prem novice - and he wanted a 5 year contract. Should owners not also have a choice on whether they want to pay that? They felt they could do better - and have.
There's no problem with us having disagreements, it's all been handled pretty well so far and when you leave us Spurs fans alone for long enough we'll find our own things to argue about amongst ourselves anyway You always expect fans to want to defend their club when they're criticised, the boot was on the other foot last summer when we got a lot of stick from Southampton fans that were unhappy with us and Pochettino so we were the ones defending our club. Thanks for clarifying the manager situation. I guess we'll never truly get to the bottom of it but as you say, it's not going to look great from the outside because of the sheer volume of managers that have passed through Watford in a short time. We're by no means innocent of being trigger happy with our managers but Watford have taken it to quite an extraordinary level I don't like it when owners flood their clubs with expensive signings they couldn't normally afford but at this point you pretty much just have to accept it. In terms of Premier League level, I don't really mind it if it's a lower club since they're really just levelling the playing field with the silly money that gets thrown around at the top of the table. We're not all famous enough to have an official club noodle sponsorship like United! An owner also owning a rugby side has no real benefits to a football club other than that it potentially earns the owner money that could be invested into the football side, which is no different to owners having anyother investments. The trouble with what your owners did was that they weren't acting in the best interests of the other sides that they owned. Had they sent off a load of your players to help those clubs I'm sure you'd have felt similarly. It's not about whether it was legal or illegal at the time, or what the Fail print(I don't think many on here have much love for them either) it's just that I think it's unethical. You'll see similar criticism on here for Chelsea and Vitesse's partnership but ultimately that's something for Dutch football to deal with. It's just not fair competition if you make signings only available to certain clubs. There's also the way Chelsea cynically use their "youth development" as assets to be bought in cheap, farmed out and then sold on for profit but that's for another time. Anyway, fairplay to you all for coming here to defend yourselves and your club, it's all been pretty amicable and you've certainly given food for thought. When it's not your club you don't always get the full picture so it's been good to get more information from you guys and it would be boring if well agreed all of the time
The Chelsea and Vitesse thing is particularly dodgy, as they've seemed to come very close to it causing an actual conflict of interest. I think that there's one there anyway, but there was a risk of them being drawn against each other at one point. The Dutch side then suffered a spectacular collapse towards the end of the season, IIRC. 8th of March 2014 they beat NAC Breda 2-1 away and were 2nd in the league with 7 games to go. This would leave the possibility of being drawn against Chelsea in the Champions League, if they were to win a qualifier. They lost four and drew three of the remaining games, failing to win any and finishing 6th. They had seven players on loan from Abramovich's mob that season. The Dutch FA investigated the links between the clubs after their former owner claimed that they intentionally avoided qualifying for the CL. They found no evidence to support his claims. The club currently have five players on loan from them.
ENIC had a similar situation to Watford when they first took over Spurs. They had stakes in Rangers, Slavia Prague, AEK Athens, Vicenza and Basel, but ended up selling them all, I believe. It all gets a bit murky when the teams make it into Europe.
"They had stakes in Rangers, Slavia Prague, AEK Athens, Vicenza and Basel, but ended up selling them all, I believe." Uncle Joe hedging his bits just like in his day job. But yes, whatever clubs ENIC had a stake in, they were disposed of once Spurs were bought.
Think we've about said it all - time to focus on beating Man City. You guys are amongst the best to have a chat with both here and on our board as most of you are interested in talking about the issues and not slagging others off. Thanks
Thanks, glad somebody appreciates it! Tell your fellow fan, Vi-rijrode, please. He apparently thinks that we're all arrogant, condescending, patronizing arseholes!
TBF The club themselves did admit mistakes with a couple of the managers like McKinlay and the Pozzos are pretty ruthless - we've seen players come and go at the drop of a hat too. Sannino wasn't liked by the players despite doing well (now you could argue the players shouldn't be running the club as such) whilst I guess the Jokanovic saga probably depends on which side you want to believe..did he want too much or did we not offer enough? As for the loan players - well yes I guess it did look rather farcical and in a way I am glad we have a mixture of British and overseas talent helping us although not too many clubs can complain about the overseas influence in the Premier league! Your club are a rare breed.. As for the general atmosphere - it has been very unusual to get any sort of noise coming out of the fans at the Vic in the past! I do think the Ake incident was probably a red in hindsight and unfortunately we all have players who try to con officials and the like - partly because the refs let them get away with it. We were unlucky with the winner though but then I guess we got lucky with Chelsea missing a penalty. (As for that WFC forums site - well some on there just don't like losing or being criticised!)
Troy Deeney hasn't covered himself in glory when talking about Ake's sending-off "The thing that frustrated me was 10 people running around the referee screaming for him to be sent off. "But apparently we're 'little Watford' and you're supposed to be running all over us, so why do you need a man sent off? "People are going to know what we do. Tottenham tried three at the back. People will show you respect. But you'll still get people who come here expecting to beat us. "We're still classed as ‘little Watford'. I find it quite cute. But we cause people problems. We've held our own and shaken up the league a little bit. Ake's challenge was a straight red, while Britos and Ighalo were both lucky to stay on the pitch - but, hey, go ahead and piss away some of the good will your club's built up this season because you have a chip on your shoulder...
To change the subject completely, did you know our two goal scorers were born almost exactly half a world away from each other. Lamela and Son were born about 19,000 kilometers apart, and the earth is 40,000 km around. You know perfectly well we're always in perfect accord, you *****. I'll return the compliment. Even the comments here from those who were clearly ticked off were informative enough to be interesting. I don't mind banter or people having a go, and I know I've gone on boards angry at losing a game and determined to win an argument (occasionally). It's the ones who bang on about the exact same things time after time who are a waste of space. Anyway, I'll be rooting for you, as long as it's not at our expense.
Unfortunately, for Ake, that's the law nowadays. I honestly don't think he intended to hurt Lamela, but if it's deemed reckless nowadays, off you go!..
I dunno what the UK commentators were saying but the US ones were all saying he was gonna get booked during the delay before the card was issued. At the same time I said "he'll be lucky if that's a yellow". To me it looked a red in real-time and in the replays because modern day football is a little bit wussy. I was following the BBC text commentary too which said something like " if anything Watford look the more likely to score since the sending off", I couldn't believe what I was reading. They had a couple of opportunities granted but to me never justified "more likely".
Reading the comments of your fans on here in the last 20 minutes or so of the match suggests to me that we were at least holding our own. Looking forward to the return at the Lane - I have attended more than one victory for us there back in the early 80's - would be nice to resume that but will expect a cracking match whatever. Would love to see Spurs win the Prem so good luck in all but one of your remaining matches
