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stewfil

Watford philosophy similar to Norwich?

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“We’re going to go into the Premier League with a very competitive squad, really strict and rigid wage structure, with young hungry players complemented with a few senior players. But should the worst happen at any given point… we are able to go down (and) keep that squad together (without) huge restructuring.

“That’s a huge lesson that we will implement and make sure that we have that young competitive squad that we believe will keep us in the Premier League for many, many years. But if an event happens, we’re absolutely fine.”

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1 minute ago, stewfil said:

“We’re going to go into the Premier League with a very competitive squad, really strict and rigid wage structure, with young hungry players complemented with a few senior players. But should the worst happen at any given point… we are able to go down (and) keep that squad together (without) huge restructuring.

“That’s a huge lesson that we will implement and make sure that we have that young competitive squad that we believe will keep us in the Premier League for many, many years. But if an event happens, we’re absolutely fine.”

Does sound like they’ve been casting more than just a few admiring glances to their north east. And this is just the start. I believe the blueprint for the way we’re being run is something that many many clubs up and down the country are taking very seriously indeed. 

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Can’t really draw comparisons with club and owners who have had 345 managers in 4 years 

Plus Troy deeney is a s**^ 

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It will be interesting to see how “football” accepts this reasoning. 
 

We were criticised for not spending last time - remember Tony Cascarino and his like saying we hadn’t tried. 
 

Two more promoted teams have come straight back down this year , the other managed to stay up for one year . If any of them had completely restructured their wages based on Prem money they would be in the Sunderland/blackburn/ Bolton /Wigan / Portsmouth (etc) guano 

You simply cannot afford to do it now . 

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They’ve just offered €12 million for a 20 year old Brazilian player so they aren’t quite following our business model yet 😳

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1 hour ago, Graham Paddons Beard said:

Two more promoted teams have come straight back down this year , the other managed to stay up for one year . If any of them had completely restructured their wages based on Prem money they would be in the Sunderland/blackburn/ Bolton /Wigan / Portsmouth (etc) guano 

You simply cannot afford to do it now

This is true, and under Alex Neil, we didn't fully restructure to PL wages, but look what happened to us? I believe we were the Madison transfer money away from being serious trouble.

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But....it's only our club that follows this model because mean nasty Delia wants to keep hold of her 'train set'.....right?

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1 hour ago, Mr Angry said:

They’ve just offered €12 million for a 20 year old Brazilian player so they aren’t quite following our business model yet 😳

Quite. I really wouldn't read much into that statement. They will probably sack their manager before Christmas and give the new one a wad of cash for the transfer window.

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There must be a lot of clubs out there spending too much money and looking at us and thinking we have got something going for us in the way we do things.  Two top of the championship finishes in three years says it all. 

However, many clubs will struggle to change to our way of doing things simply because of the ego of their rich owners who will still think they can spend their way to success.  There will be a few clubs that try to emulate what we are doing but most clubs will look at it and think we are a "one off" - a glitch in the matrix if you like - and that money is still the main requirement.

 

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Seemingly likely to lose all creativity to the transfer market.  Cannot find a Buendia Brexit rules.  Another Cantwell on the horizon don't think so.  No Webber or Farke cannot see top 26 if fail in PL.

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I'll just repeat what I've said on here many times before. With FFP rules, wealthy owners are just not able to spend vast amounts in the EFL because the rules are applied to spending versus turnover, and with very little TV money, most clubs in the EFL have very small turnovers.

This is the reason why Portsmouth have not bought their way out of League One, and why several Championship sides are so limited in what they can do. Unless they discover some players who can enhance their value and then get sold, the only ways they can increase turnover is by increasing ticket prices or selling more season tickets.

Ipswich are said to have  a £40m budget this season. On their £16m turnover, that produces a loss of £24m. 

They can go for it and hope they go up, but turnover doesn't increase by too much in the Champs whereas wages do (massively) so they need to go up again and the loss could go up hugely. If they don't make it, they're suddenly in a whole heap of trouble and need to sell assets to reduce losses. So many clubs have been here (QPR, Derby, Forest etc). Competitive salaries in the Champs are the problem - without TV money (parachute payments) it is impossible to break even. 

A wealthy owner can really only provide cashflow, not turnover. Without them the clubs who try it must eventually go bust, hence the reasoning  behind "new" ways of adjusting the business model. People may be looking at the Norwich way, but without promotion, even our way is very risky.

What is happening is the polarisation of each division, based on wage differentials - the gaps are simply too big to breach. As the likes of Wycombe, Rotherham, Fulham and West Brom have discovered this season. Even when you get there, all the new money is spent on wages, but turnover increases and that buys another few years of being able to "compete". 

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3 hours ago, Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man said:

I don't know, the fee is a bit higher than we'd likely spend but it isn't too far removed.

Their purchase of Grimsby and Rochdale players in the last few days is similar to our recent history of buying, but €12 million is higher than our record transfer fee paid.


Gino Pozzo has been scouting players for over 25 years and has been targeting potential for all that time. Danilo may end up in their first team but he’s just as likely to never play a single game, like many of the players he has signed at Watford. If we paid anywhere near that amount for a player we would expect him to be the first name on the team sheet.

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I personally think Watford and Norwich are examples of how polar opposites can achieve the same goal 🤷‍♂️

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Not really sure you can compare at this stage given Watford get through managers quicker than anything, and they have had plenty of cash to spend thanks to their years in the Prem, their kitty must be far larger than ours, given they also sold a few players when they dropped down

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On 29/05/2021 at 08:39, Mr Angry said:

They’ve just offered €12 million for a 20 year old Brazilian player so they aren’t quite following our business model yet 😳

Who is that? I saw they were in talks with Rafael Sante Borre and want Eddie Nkietah. 

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On 29/05/2021 at 00:23, stewfil said:

“We’re going to go into the Premier League with a very competitive squad, really strict and rigid wage structure, with young hungry players complemented with a few senior players. But should the worst happen at any given point… we are able to go down (and) keep that squad together (without) huge restructuring.

“That’s a huge lesson that we will implement and make sure that we have that young competitive squad that we believe will keep us in the Premier League for many, many years. But if an event happens, we’re absolutely fine.”

They have a £35m player whose wages will be ridiculous, they aren’t doing the Norwich model at all. It’s just another way of them saying they don’t have much money

Edited by Dr Greenthumb

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10 hours ago, Terminally Yellow said:

Who is that? I saw they were in talks with Rafael Sante Borre and want Eddie Nkietah. 

Borre looks an interesting one and reports are that he may have already signed for someone but it’s not been confirmed. I doubt they would be after 2 strikers as Joao Pedro has just signed an extension to 2027 so it’s probably one of the other. They’ll have to get rid of Deeney, Gray and Success though!

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I'm sure they would have had a wage bill similar to us when they got promoted 5 or 6 years ago. The problem always comes when you stay in the prem for a few years. Then signings become more expensive and wages go up. I'm sure the same would happen to us after a sustained period in the prem. From what I can see they are just saying don't expect another £30+ million on a Sarr signing for example. I still believe they will spend more than us but they are just calming expectations. 

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The pozzos bought loads of talent from South America for Watford. None of them ever played for the club. We gained 20 million profit on two of these players last August. We dont just buy to play, we play the transfer market as well. Whilst we did spend 30 million on Sarr we signed Docoure and Richarlison for 10 million and sold them for 55 million. We paid 3 million for Pedro the guy is 18, easily worth 10 million already. 

I dont think any of the promoted clubs will go down next year. Burnley and Palace are looking in trouble and Wolves could go into freefall.

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Just now, Moosebadge said:

The pozzos bought loads of talent from South America for Watford. None of them ever played for the club. We gained 20 million profit on two of these players last August. We dont just buy to play, we play the transfer market as well. Whilst we did spend 30 million on Sarr we signed Docoure and Richarlison for 10 million and sold them for 55 million. We paid 3 million for Pedro the guy is 18, easily worth 10 million already. 

I dont think any of the promoted clubs will go down next year. Burnley and Palace are looking in trouble and Wolves could go into freefall.

Not fully sure with that last bit. There's a cogent argument that Brentford pretty much could be where we were two years ago. Whilst I'll always think we were tremendously unlucky with injuries at centre-half (and Liverpool have shown this season how the attack of a team can also be impaired when a team misses too many centre-halves) we probably still played too open a style of football to say with any conviction that we could have stayed up even if we hadn't had so many matches where all of Klose, Hanley and Zimmermann were out at the same time. Unless Brentford upgrade their defence somewhat, I think they'll do what we did - look very good on occasion, get some eye-catching wins in, but fall short.

Burnley need a couple of fresh players really, but in Pope, Tarkovski and Mee they have an excellent set of three in goal and defence. I agree that Palace could be in trouble with so many players at the end of their contract and Hodgson leaving but if most of those return and if they keep Zaha and Eze, they'll have a fair bit to spare. Wolves could go either way - depends who comes in.

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4 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

Burnley need a couple of fresh players really, but in Pope, Tarkovski and Mee they have an excellent set of three in goal and defence. I agree that Palace could be in trouble with so many players at the end of their contract and Hodgson leaving but if most of those return and if they keep Zaha and Eze, they'll have a fair bit to spare. Wolves could go either way - depends who comes in.

Eze is out until January, so that's already a huge blow.

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