The Tyger
God created the Lamb, but he also created the Tiger.
It's hard to put a leash on a dog once you've put a crown on it’s head. You can’t mention Gino Pozzo without mentioning “the first six years were…” *insert complimentary adjective.* But he doesn’t deserve to have this privilege anymore, he’s a tyrant in anything but name. Churchill may have won a war but he was still booed by his soldiers, he was still hated by everyone despite the help he got to be the man he Harry Pottered invisible cloaked the world to be. How you conduct yourself and how you treat others, especially in a negative light will always come back to you in the end. Outside of Watford, and possibly Finland, I don’t think people realise the severity of the future of Watford Football Club. We’ve gone from an established Premier League club to having a wage budget fewer than Plymouth Argyle in three seasons — When Duxbury mentioned in his interview with DNSYE that our wage budget was “probably” the lowest in the league at £17m, I had to check some accounts, and It genuinely maybe true. Argyle’s wage budget last season was £15.2m and they’ve only lost one key player and signed multiple players since then that would take it more than likely above what we’re spending currently. Do you know how mad this is? our sporting director or whatever he’s decided to call himself these days is wearing it like a badge of honour because of the colossal mismanagement of funds over the last number of seasons which is down to him and Gino Pozzo and Gianluca Nani. If indeed that £17m figure is true, that roughly averages out to around £8k per week wages, which is FEWER than what Duxbury himself gets. It’s one massive cult that we’re not apart of and they take the piss each and every day coming up with different lies to spew to take the heat off their own backs. If you notice their strategy, It’s always carefully selected word salad with a promise at the end of it to keep the hope alive — But the promise never comes, and we’re back to square one season after season. The club the size of Watford should also not be shelling out £20m in managerial sackings; imagine that money was reinvested into the team instead of not giving the conveyor belt of head coaches time and expecting ridiculous overperformance with squads not fit for purpose. How are we in 2025, nearly eight seasons on from the cup final and the same mistakes are being made but on a much larger scale with a massive burning hole in the pocket? we’re a club that constantly cuts corners. The recruitment is bad because the people in place are bad at recruitment — every single one of them has been let go by lower league clubs for this exact reason. Our head of UK recruitment is someone who nearly got Doncaster relegated in back to back seasons, and someone who worked with him said he should be nowhere near football and that’s a damning indictment. Then you look deeper and he was at Doncaster when they signed Pontus Dahlberg and Tiago Çukur for very good loan fees.. nothing to see here. Have we signed good players? sure but you can still criticise the form if the shots perfect. The lasting effects have led us to the point where the sentence “we cannot afford to spend money on players.” has been said by our own Director.
Moving forward, well if there is a forward, Watford’s squad is a total mess. Tom Cleverley’s current stay as Head Coach seems to be hanging on by a thread as we know neither Gino nor Gianluca want him at the club. Tom subtly referenced it in multiple interviews, and Pacheta would be currently in the dugout had it not been for work permit restrictions. The entire hierarchy are sheep , Cleverley is a Deer and Gino is a Wolf, as long as the one wolf is alive, the Deer are never safe. Unless investment is close, a takeover is close, a Head Coach works a miracle, Watford are teetering on the edge of League One football. It might not happen this season, but it’s a real possibility next season or the season after that — you are never too good to go down. This was something short because I want to get back into writing about Watford, so I’m going to end this on our squad as it stands going into next season.
