It's Round and It's White
This week Bruce Halling looks into the new regime at Watford, and offers his assessment of the first few months under the Pozzo regime.
The sale of Watford Football Club to the Pozzo family over the summer was intended to mark the start of a bright new era for the Hertfordshire-based Championship side, with the expectation of new investment into the team and promises of an ambition to take the club into the Premier League. It is still very early days, with less than half a season completed under the new ownership, but already there are signs that maybe the Pozzo era may not be as bright as what was initially hoped for.
Much has been made about the transfer policy of the club, which is something quite unlike anything that has ever been seen in this country before. Jibes have been made with reference to the club’s Football Manager sponsorship deal, but the truth of the matter is that what is going on at Watford is nothing like Football Manager. I’ve certainly never had as many loan players on any game as Watford do at the club at current – the number of loanees at Vicarage Road currently stands at 14, most of whom are on loan from Udinese and Granada – and I genuinely cannot see how it can be a good thing for the club.
Football League rules state that at least six of a club’s starting eleven must be ‘homegrown’ players. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they have to be English, but that they have spent at least three years with an English club before the age of twenty one. As such, there is never going to be enough room in the team to accommodate all of these players. Take into consideration the fact that Manuel Almunia is the team’s established first choice goalkeeper, and loanees Almen Abdi, Matej Vydra and Daniel Pudil have all become regular starters for the club, and you are left with a situation where nine of the remaining loanees are essentially competing for one place in the team. This does make you question how much value there is to these players being at the club in the first instance if they are not likely to be playing regularly.
It cannot be making life easy for Gianfranco Zola. He currently has a squad of 35 players, which is frankly far too big for any club of any size in any division. If you include the seven currently out on loan, this brings the number up to 42. They say that the perfect scenario for a squad is you have competition for places for every position, but when you have a squad so big that you have, on average, nearly four players for each position, the benefits from this are far outweighed by the drawbacks. Football players want to be playing every week and when the squad is so huge that there is no way that you can accommodate everybody, those players who aren’t getting regular game time are going to be unhappy and unhappy players can have a destabilising effect on the squad. When you consider that many of the loanees will be expecting to be playing regularly at Watford, this makes the expectations of the players an even more difficult thing to manage.
Let us not forget, as well, that Watford are a club with a good reputation when it comes to developing and bringing through their own players. Ashley Young, Marvin Sordell and Adrian Mariappa have all come through the club’s academy and gone onto to other clubs, whilst current first team players Lee Hodson and Lloyd Doyley have also spent their entire career with the club. The reason the club have been so successful in bringing through players is because they have always been a club that have been willing to give younger players an opportunity to prove themselves in the team. Under the current situation, this is no longer possible and younger players such as Matthew Whichelow, Ross Jenkins and Britt Assombalonga have all had to go out on loan to other clubs in order to get regular games. While the experience they gain will no doubt hold them in good stead, the fact they are not training with their parent club means that, should they be given the opportunity within the first team squad, they will have to go through the process of bedding themselves back in with the squad at Watford – something which could be avoided entirely if the players were gaining the experience at the club in the way that they were in seasons gone by.
The sad thing is that this proud tradition of Watford’s may become a thing of the past. There is some doubt about how much control Zola even has over transfer policy. In an interview last month, Zola stated that the current club structure dictates that the team play in a certain way, with the club providing him with the best players to play in that particular way, with Zola given the responsibility to pick the players for the team. This seems to imply that the responsibility for player recruitment lies largely beyond Zola, and rather with the club’s technical director Gianluca Nani. This model is completely and inherently different from the traditional model used by English clubs, where the manager has much more overall control over player recruitment, and it is unclear whether this new model is going to be any more effective – or indeed, popular – than the tried and tested method previously used at the club. One thing is for sure, though. The Pozzo family are firmly in charge at Watford. Former manager Sean Dyche was quite unceremoniously removed from the post of first team manager immediately upon the commencement of the new ownership, with Zola placed in charge to be primarily a first team coach as opposed to a manager. He has been tasked to run the club in the vision of Giampaolo Pozzo and will simply do as he is told, regardless of the consideration of how things have always been done at Watford.
So far, although it is still early days, it doesn’t actually look as if there has been much of a progression. Yes, it will take time given the widescales changes that have been made at the club, but the most important asset any football club has are its fans. The fans will want to see that the club is progressing and there isn’t too much to suggest that the club is going to progress much, if at all, this season. Watford have been a solid mid-table side in the Championship in recent seasons, and at current it appears that mid-table is exactly where Watford will remain – at least, certainly for this season.
Whichelow, Jenkins, Mingoia and Bennett all struggled for games under Dyche, and are unfortunately no better than League 1 standard. Assombalonga is not ready for the first team, and going on loan is going to be massively beneficial for him.
No mention as well that Tommie Hoban has started the last 3 games, and Connor Smith has been given his debut this season. Both have been handed 5 year deals, along with Sean Murray.
Our performances under Zola have recently improved a lot, with the foreign players adjusting well to the league. The fans are well behind this new regime, and we’re only to aware that the Pozzo’s saved our club from liquidation
This guy knows nothing, if you have been to any games this season you would have seen the progression and the quality of play on the pitch displayed for all to see, it will not be long before we move up the league and you take all those words back.
A very predictable article.
Please answer the following:
1. If the Pozzo family had not taken over Watford then the club would be in administration, with a large points deduction and potentially even out of business. Please explain how the situation now is worse than this scenario.
2. The claim that young players are not being given a chance is absolute tosh. Murray, Hoban and Smith have all played and being given 5 year contracts. Britt has gone on loan to get experience whereas Michelow and Jenkins are not good enough – and have not been good enough for any manager not just Zola. The whole Pozzo philosophy is to build up young players – look at udinese and grenada.
3. It will not change overnight – so to say nothing has changed is frankly ridiculous.
Zola has given one of our youngsters his debut and has started with another young former academy defender in the last few games. On top of that these two plus another young pro have been given five year contracts. Assombalonga will be the next.
What an appalling load of tosh. Is there any chance you consider doing some basic research before typing out this tripe. Here’s a few facts you might have considered before jumping on the bash Watford bandwagon thats started rolling in recent weeks.
1. Watford do not have 14 players on loan, they have one on loan from Chelsea the others are on temporary international contracts which are not classified as loans. This means the DOMESTIC 4 players on loan rule does not apply to Watford. Research on how such transfers were done at Pozzo owned Granada would show you that the players loaned were generally there for two or more seasons to provide continuity. This of course is no different to signing a player permantly on a 2 year deal.
2. Manuel Almunia is a Watford player signed on a permanant contract at the start of the season. He also qualifies as a home grown player through long term residency rules.
3. Watford’s youth system isn’t suffering. The academy status was downgraded due to it being not commercially viable to run an academy under the new premier league rules on youth team expenditure. We still have the same facilities and coaching set up as before, we just don’t have to spend pointless amounts of money on ‘analysis suites’. Additionally, why pay the league a premium to be able to sign players from the Carlisle area when we have always traditionally recruited from within our own local catchment area anyway.
4. Oh but you say they don’t get a chance in the team! But of course this is also complete rubbish, the truth is Academy Graduates Sean Murray, Tommy Hoban and Connor Smith have all played a number of games in the first team this season and have all been awarded long term contracts. Of the three players you mention, Mat Wichelow isn’t good enough and spent all of last season under Sean Dyche out of the team and out on loan. Ross Jenkins is a decent player but is actually competing against fellow English Watford players Eustace and Hogg for one holding midfield spot, so it makes sense to send him out on loan to get some games. Britt Assombalonga is out on loan as part of his development programe. Last year he had two successful stints at non league level before spending the last month on of the season in and around the first team squad. This season he’s been loaned to League 2 Southend, where he has continued his excellent progress. His loan is nothing to do with lack of opportunity it’s just that he’s only 19 and is being sensibly developed by the club in exactly the same way Marvin Sordell was. If you were any kind of Southend fan you’d be aware of this.
5. The club have also stated publicly on a number of occasions that the aim is promotion next season, and the fans accept this as sensible. We all know that this season is one for sorting out the off the field chaos and debts left behind by the previous administration. The only wild levels of expectation have emanated from ill-educated hacks trying to sell a story on the back of badly researched rantings about loans.
Next time you turn your attention to Watford please try and at least be balanced about it, balance and research are pre-requisites of a good journalist. This is so badly missing those elements you should be ashamed to put your name to it.
Does not the fact that Assombalonga is banging them in with abandon at your beloved shrimpers, yet would not get on the bench with our current squad, give you an idea of the level of talent now in the team? Britt will come through when the time is right, and academy players will continue to come through if they are good enough. The difference now is that we don’t have to chuck them in when they are not ready because the squad is so thin. Britt played several games at the end of last season and was frankly out of his depth.
I started out very sceptical of the new regime, but the football we are playing has won me round. We’ll lose a few more games no doubt, but to be honest the losses have hardly dampened my enthusiasm, so good is the football being played.
What an ill conceived ,ill written piece of badly researched tripe , I can tell Bruce didnt spend much time on his article, seems to have just rehashed fat Sam`s garbage from the daily fail.
Bruce if you are going to write about WFC please do some research and get your facts right.
And you say you want to be a journalist?
Why don’t you do your research properly before writing an article like this?
This is very poor indeed.
1/10.
Well Bruce, this has gone down like a led balloon eh? Perhaps stick to what you know and understand.
Well yet another view from the outside looking in. To be fair this article is no less ignorant than the one from The Daily Mails chief sports writer. I guess we’d better get used to others seemingly wanting watford’s new regime to fail. A mark of which is this article, which i assume is only aimed at other club’s fan in order to stoke further resentment.
I’m very happy to see that all other watford fans have jumped to positively to the defence of the club, the players, the management and the owners. I’ll continue to enjoy the ride.
as a foot note, the bookies also seemed to expect us to fail this season. After we narrowly lost 3 in a row, i stuck £20 on at 60 to 1 for us to be promoted. So thanks to the negative idiots that may have swayed the bookies opinion of our chances this season!
I back Scott’s reply in it’s entirety though I will also point out the original authors misunderstanding of the more than useless homegrown players rule which is not limited to starters, it essentially means 5 from a squad of 18 must have 3 years English or Welsh previous experience at any level. Not that it matters, our imports are as Scott rightly points out are sanctioned by a Fifa ruling thats say’s international season long loans are to be treated administratively as transfers, a loophole probably intended to aid the big European clubs with feeders that the Pozzo regime have legitimately exploited …. a loophole that I guess might get changed but until then, why not?
As for pulling out of the new U-21 league, it seemed like a good idea but quite simply after much toing and froing they have set the bar so high that it can only be damaging to a club our size and effectively we would have to double our output and therefore halve the quality. And for what? just to get tonked by the big academy’s every week when for these lads a stint of first team action at a lower club is more beneficial. Despite the common press, the club have not downgraded anything, it is entirely ‘as you were’.
I am glad to see that Scott pointed out we don’t have 14 loanees, however Chalobah is not the only one because remember Mujangi Bia is from Standard Liege so that makes two, but that’s all it is.
No I didn’t.
Last time I looked Standard Liege were in Belgium which makes it a temporary international transfer not a loan!
I’ll just add Bruce that appearances can be deceptive and although we beat Charlton at their place with 10 men, it is too much us to ask of us every week. Inept refereeing against Boro robbed us the chance of 3 on the spin when Vydra was red carded literally for evading a tackle (the FA did not dwell in rescinding it), until then we had been the most likely.
Us fans are certainly not complaining, “at current” as you put it we are mid table but the trend is upwards and forever the optimist I have my money on more than just promotion, there are 36 games and 108 points still up for grabs and Watford fans are unanimous that ‘we’re only just starting to play’.
A word of advice Bruce: steer clear of writing analytical pieces on football teams unless you know that club inside out. This article has more holes in it than San Marino’s defence last Friday.
Since Aidy Boothroyd almost bankrupted the club, all Watford “Managers” have had minimal input when bringing in players, that means Brendan Rodgers, Malky Mackay and Sean Dyche, all who’s jobs were made easy by the clubs then excellent recruiting team. This is a policy far more the norm in this country than your reporting suggests albeit without the named position of “director of football” included. However, as on the continent, most league managers today are given a choice of attainable targets within a realistic budget and except for yay or nay they rarely call the shots unless change is required.
As technical director we have Gianluca Nani, previously a lawyer, scout and agent in his own right that is quite willing to take a back seat while others work their magic and in Gianfranco Zola we have a 1st team coach that is completely happy to be just that. His forte is what goes on on the green carpet before him using the tools he is given and if they happen to get blunt then Nani and the Pozzo’s have plenty more in stock.
Bruce, please don’t hide behind your monitor/keyboard. Your article has brought some educated (surprising from football fans) and generally inoffensive comments. Please take the time to respond. I’d be very interested to know whether your opinion has slightly changed, or if you’d like to defend your article against the points made.
Lets hope all you over confident and certain of promotion WFC on here when your club is found out for what are they.
Simply a feeder club run by people with no interest in the game here.
Another simplistic (and slightly dimwitted to be honest) comment.
1 How can we be a feeder club when it is we who are being given players with technical ability (and passion, from the weekend) beyond our wildest imaginings?
2 The financial rewards of getting Watford into the Premiership far exceed those in Serie A and La Liga. Put together.
PS still no response Bruce?
First of all, thanks to all of you that have taken the time to read and comment on this piece. I have to be honest, I was quite surprised that it has drawn such a negative response from fans of Watford as it was certainly not intended to be a ‘negative’ piece.
It will take a long time to answer each point individually that everyone has made so just a few general points in response to what has been said:
1. On the transfer policy side of things, I find the concept of the Temporary International Contracts an interesting one. I accept that they are not like a typical loan, nor are they treated as such on an administrative level, but fundamentally the players in question are owned by one club whilst playing for another, which I still see as a loan. Given the sheer number of these players at the club, and the home-grown players rule (which, yes, I admit, I did make a mistake on) it almost goes without saying that some of these players are going to struggle to get games, so I fail to see what they are adding to the squad.
2. On the point about youth, which I think seems to be the main bone of contention here, while a number of young players are being given an opportunity to shine this season, with a current squad in excess of 40 players (if you include the players the club have currently loaned out) it surely stands to reason that opportunities for young players in the future are going to be a lot more limited? This could of course mean that only the best of the best get through, but there is definitely a risk that, should Watford become a club where young players find it more difficult to get a chance to shine, the long-term effects of this are that players in the region start opting to sign up with other clubs?
3. The comments about progression were talking predominantly about results. Given football is a results business, this isn’t something I considered particularly controversial. Because of the sheer number of changes at the club, I don’t believe Watford will move forwards much this season in terms of their on-pitch performance, which is the point I was making. As for a couple of seasons down the line, when the structure at the club has become more established, then Watford should be in a position to challenge for greater things.
On a final note, I would just like to point out that the Road To The Promised Land column is actually an opinion column rather than a full-on analysis column. Football is a game of opinions, and I’m actually glad that you feel so strongly as to jump to the defence of your club when articles are written about them – but I don’t actually want your club to fail, as some of you seem to think. I’d like to see them do quite well but, as I’ve pointed out i the article, there are one or two things which I believe may be more of a hindrance than a help.
Thanks Bruce, good response, I’m pleased you took the time to read the comments and respond.
As always there are no right or wrong answers, Watford’s situation is certainly different and one that will continue to draw attention from the media and opposition fans alike. However, given the way football is going, with more and more bias given towards the premiership, I would like for people to start to think – what is the alternative for clubs like Watford who aren’t in the Premiership, who until this year had limited chance of achieving promotion? I believe Watford’s current situation is much more favorable and sustainable than those of other clubs in the championship who spend spend spend in a a bid to get promoted and the depths of their over spending will be made more clear in the coming years as more clubs fail to function.
Given the above, if you agree with the premise, maybe a step back and begin to contrast the set up at Watford compared to clubs heavily in unsustainable debt (Forest, Derby, Ipswich, Coventry, Portsmouth etc). These are clubs who have all overextended financially in bids to get to the premiership and going forwards these clubs will have to continue to invest to try and chase a return on their historic debts. I think it is clear which set up provides less risk financially and also, given the plethora of talented players Watford now have at their finger tips, provides the more compelling argument for promotion to the Premier League in the short to medium term.
Therefore, in my opinion at least, we should try to understand and embrace the model Watford have in place now. Yes, as you point out there are faults with it in terms of player numbers, however we must allow the dust from the takeover to settle before the process becomes more ‘streamline’. The squad size is an issue that has been discussed and is an unprecedented error acknowledged by the management.
‘Things change but stay the same’…if you talk about results, sir yes you are right so far, after 12 games Watford are committing to type. If you look at the wider picture, financial security, and the potential end of season finish and long term fortunes, then I beg to differ…
Yes, this is a results game and with the current footballing and financial model in place Watford are much better placed to succeed. In doing so they will achieve results that I have not witnessed in my lifetime and could not dream of prior to this season given the way Watford and football, outside the premiership in this country, are going.