Watford have had three managers this season, with their two remaining games being Manchester City and Arsenal, I’d be inclined to make Troy Deeney the interim manager.
A new manager wouldn’t have the time to make an impact, its down to the players now, maybe Deeney could galvanise them.
To float the idea of Woodgate as head of recruitment is just showing us all who is the owner of this club. It is obvious that this rescue act is and always was, just a stunt to save the ship from sinking. He looks as if he might have done it, gulp!! And equally we are going to get another disaster season from our scout /manager.
You certainly could not invent this scenario, I wonder if he will tell his equally successful side kick to 'come back all is forgiven' now that would be Good.
@exmil I don’t promulgate rumours from hearsay.
I was told by a current member of the first team who said that Clayton had said his goodbyes on Friday and was gutted apparently.
i never have pushed untruths or tittle tattle but hey that’s fine I won’t post anymore
OFB
@original-fat-bob. I hope that you will re-consider and continue to post as your input, humour and Insights is valued by many of us. 😎😢
Don't stop OFB. Keep them coming. We like them.
Regarding the Cowleys, after pulling off the great escape, they are shown the door. Does prove that loyalty is in short supply in football.
If it turns out to be true that Woodgate is getting the Head of Recruitment job then as RR says it raises serious questions about the governance of our football club. It would demonstrate clearly that the jobs for the boys family mafia is still firmly in control despite the awful mess they have made of it over the last few years. It would show that failure results in being moved to another another job. It would also cast doubt on whether any of the decisions taken by the management are based on unbiased solid business reasons in the best interests of the club or are heavily influenced by their impact on family interests. The events of recent years would seem to indicate the latter basis for decisions and retaining Woodgate confirms it. He should be out of the club to allow a new manager to wipe the slate clean.
If the mafia is to remain the overriding power in the club what does that tell Warnock or anyone else who might consider taking the team manager job? Would the manager really want other members of the mafia looking over his shoulder all the time and maybe making comments about him behind his back to the Chairman?
The whole situation stinks and the rot that appears to have set in will destroy the club unless it is weeded out. Is Warnock strong enough to do that? Would Nigel Pearson now be a good bet as he is known for being a combative individual? The problem is that whoever might take the manager’s job will face a major battle to get a free hand unless the Chairman recognises the existence of the rot and stops it.
He has shown no signs of doing so and the appointment of Woodgate would confirm that he doesn’t intend to start now. In which case I believe the club will decline further and die unless there is a change in ownership and someone takes control who runs the club as a professional business rather than a family indulgence.
i really hope OFB’s information is wrong and that the club management has finally twigged that the way they have run the club in recent years has been a disaster. However, something in my mind is telling me it most probably isn’t and OFB’s last email above confirms it.
Don't you dare leave, my two Parson Jack Russell Terriers will be after you. You'll pop down to the shops one day and meet the midfield from hell.
UTB & OFB,
John
If Clayton has said his farewells then it’s probably an open secret at the club, but where has the Woodgate as, head of recruitment come from?
It would appear that the out of contract players ( Howson aside) are being allowed to leave and if Nmecha and Roberts return to City it will be the slimmest of slim pickings since Slim Pickens was around.
Hardly an attractive proposition for a new manager, this would make it merely a financial decision to attract someone, no ambitious manager would touch the job with a barge pole. Faced with starting a new season with this lot further weakened by departures why come?
Just to add. When SG decided to dispense with Woodgate as manager he should have immediately left the club, or was he merely bringing Warnock in as a Venables like appointment?
I'm sorry Bob, but you are absolutely forbidden to stop posting your invaluable insights and invariably accurate intelligence about the club garnered from your many bona fide confidants.
So, take that thought right out of head straight away.
Bob
Your insights and contacts are an indispensable part of this great blog and are a far more reliable source of information and exclusive tips and hints than any newspaper. Keep it up. please. Your contributions are uniquely valuable, always to the point and invariably salted with your own particular brand of humour.
You are a great and essential contributor to this blog. Without your early curation the blog might not have survived. Without your contacts the blog would lack one of its most important qualities. You stepped in to provide the kind of insider insights we seemed to be in danger of losing when AV stepped aside. It was and continues to be a vital part of the blog. And your terrific interviews were one of the main reasons why the blog remained essential reading during the summer months. You're a top man, a great contributor, and you must stay.
OFB
I’m appalled that someone on this forum should question your integrity, but the person concerned hardly ever praises the contributions of other bloggers or shows compassion to those who have health problems so not really one of the Band of Brothers that you quite rightly often refer to on this forum. You’re indispensable on this forum, so please don’t stop posting.
OFB, The overwhelming majority of the contributors to this forum look forward to your posts and depend on you for inside information on what is going on at MFC. Without you the forum would be a shadow of what it is today so allowing you to leave is out of the question.
@ken Thanks for those words. One of the things we always maintained on this blog from its concept was that we always played the ball not the man.
I was therefore surprised and must confess quite upset that my integrity was questioned.
I don’t make these reports up why should I? I’m not gaining anything from it?
The information was passed on by a current first team squad player who of course remains anonymous and quite frankly to ask whom it was is quite an infantile and insensitive question. I don’t doubt that things may change before our next game but that is the current status.
OFB
@ken Thanks for those words. One of the things we always maintained on this blog from its concept was that we always played the ball not the man.
I was therefore surprised and must confess quite upset that my integrity was questioned.
I don’t make these reports up why should I? I’m not gaining anything from it?
The information was passed on by a current first team squad player who of course remains anonymous and quite frankly to ask whom it was is quite an infantile and insensitive question. I don’t doubt that things may change before our next game but that is the current status.
OFB
Here here
We are incredibly fortunate on this blog to have some outstanding contributors who have consistently delivered information and other content of the highest quality. OFB is a treasure, as indeed is our resident historian Ken who has shown an amazing fortitude over recent times.
People, please recognise what we have and let’s keep an atmosphere of respect. It doesn’t mean that we have to agree the whole time - far from it - but let’s do what we can to maintain this forum.
Getting back to football, I admit to being surprised at Clayton’s departure. He has seemed very happy at the club and I’d have expected him to be available for Wednesday. Maybe he knows that NW just doesn’t rate him.
This season has been a slow-motion trainwreck made more painful by its apparent inevitability. Even if logic says that we are safe, I still fear the worst and will do so until something definitive happens to change it.
Utb
I think that NW has realised that due to time constraints he needs to work with a small group of players (even accepting that the squad is small to begin with) to getting his message across. Morrison, as most of us expected has done nothing of any note just as he has underwhelmed at a host of previous clubs which made his signing somewhat smacking of desperation at the time. Its a shame that all that ability has been wasted but how many of his previous clubs fans have probably expressed those exact same sentiments.
With too many midfielders an out of contract Clayts was probably an uncomfortable situation for the squad, the manager and most importantly for the player himself and it was probably kinder not to drag him into Rockliffe any longer when the manager knew that he wasn't going to consider him.
The dismissal of Howson certainly won't have been factored in but with McNair and Wing ahead of Clayts it still probably won't change things in terms of NW's thinking.
Well, things are back on an even keel, as even as they ever are with Boro. There's a clear blue sky and a pair of eyes in it. No they're clouds. Cup of tea anyone?
Welcome back OFB, I've stood the terriers down, although the long walk to Teesside would have gone down well.
What surprises, shocks and stupidities will this week bring? Don't tell me that the tea lady is injured now.
UTB,
John
The Cowley sacking was a surprise in that he hasn't had long enough to shape the squad but maybe those in the posh seats at Huddersfield decided that it would be shaped in the form of a League One or worse League Two image.
Watford parting company with Pearson seems a very strange one on the surface especially the timing of it but it seems that the effect of a new Manager bounce has waned significantly of late and the football was dire and uninspiring as well increasingly less productive. Its a gamble that will either bite the owners in the backside or be a last ditch masterstroke.
As someone who appreciates exmil's contributions to this blog, and in particular all of the hard work he has put into his challenge for our enjoyment, as well as his generally positive take on events when pessimism and despondency seem to be the order of the day, I was saddened by the recent turn of events.
I think it's important to say that exmils general point is a good one. This is not a blog which has ever had any truck with unsubstantiated rumours whose sole source is "a friend of my window cleaner's next-door neighbour" type. Nor should it ever do so.
The problem is that this perfectly valid stricture cannot be applied to Bob's insights which have illuminated the blog for many years. I think most of us recognise that Bob' has vast experience and an enviable range of contacts within and close to the club, reliable sources which ,for obvious reasons, have to remain confidential. Indeed, Bob must sometimes have been in some danger of compromising those sources in order to provide the service he does in keeping us all so well informed. Because that is what Bob has done. His brief hints are generally spot on or at least very close to the mark. The trust that most of us have in Bob has been well-earned over many years.
In truth what seems to be involved here is less a disagreement than a misunderstanding, or, if I may say so, the misapplication of a perfectly valid general point to a specific case to which it emphatically does not apply.
As someone who has enjoyed and valued both exmil's and Bob's contributions to this blog I would be immensely saddened if either of them did not continue to contribute to it to everyone else's benefit. I hope than on mature reflection both gentlemen will continue to do so.
@redcarred That’s a good assessment of news, leaked news, snippets, rumours and what we glean from all sources.
As you and others are aware I have a lot of contacts in the football world and also media contacts. I don’t make things up as there is no need to and don’t want to lose credibility or appear to be a liar or rumour monger.
The latest two rumours that I posted came from within the club and obviously I can’t say where from. These may not come to pass as things change from day to day and people change their minds but I post exactly how I’ve been told. Thanks for your post it’s appreciated and all the posts of support.
OFB
Reading back through the posts I can see why you might take offence, OFB, but I’m not sure exmil would want you to.
Hopefully both parties can put their differences to one side and move on. I know that I’ve had disagreements on Twitter with you, OFB, but this forum definitely benefits from your presence, as it does also from Exmil’s.
@redcarred. Good post RR. I also liked the article from PT in the gazette and was going to post the link but you beat me to it! 😎
What’s going on? I thought this was a platform for airing views, opinions and a general chinwag about all things Boro. Here’s what’s been deemed an offensive post resulting in threats of departure and indignation about being asked ( in my opinion) a perfectly reasonable question about Woodgate being appointed Head of Recruitment.
“OFB would you mind posting the link where you got this information as I cannot find anything anywhere to substantiate this comment. We all hear rumours from “a friend of a friend who lives down the street of the tea lady” but on this blog I thought we only posted credible reports or rumours that are in print.
Come on BORO.“
I’m quite sure Exmil is perfectly capable of speaking up for himself but I’m uncomfortable with this trend of “victimhood” and subsequent occupation of the moral high ground. Like RR has said, there are always rumours floating around a football club and they are often repeated. In fact this is not something only associated with football and can be found in offices and workplaces everywhere.
We’re all grown ups here and if you don’t like, or agree with something posted then you’re perfectly entitled to say so, basically the raison de etre of this blog.
We’ve already lost Ian Gill over something equally silly and perhaps it’s typical Teesside obstinacy that he’s not here, but if you are lurking in the shadows Ian just come back, you know you want to.
Reading back through the posts I can see why you might take offence, OFB, but I’m not sure exmil would want you to.
Hopefully both parties can put their differences to one side and move on. I know that I’ve had disagreements on Twitter with you, OFB, but this forum definitely benefits from your presence, as it does also from Exmil’s.
I agree with you but I’d hope that more respect and tact was used in some cases. I’m too long in the tooth to get into arguments with anyone, and can accept criticism but agree that everyone is entitled to their views. Nevertheless the tone of the questioning of the integrity of one of our most respected friends was a bridge too far for me, and I felt I had to defend him, but an apology to Bob from the person concerned would at least show a little dignity. The hardest word in the dictionary is sorry and is also a show of strength not weakness, so l hope that this particular episode can now be forgotten.
Anyway my beloved Tea Lady informs me that Neil likes extra Milk in his and is opposed to dunking.
Perhaps of less importance is that as her Trolley rattled around Rockliffe she "allegedly" saw a scribbled note on a pad on Warnock's desk which had around a dozen or so names with five of them circled and underlined several times. Unfortunately I didn't have enough Custard Creams or Chocolate Digestives to squeeze any more information out of her other than to say that she did see the same photocopied list on Gary Gill's desk (more of a coffee drinker apparently).
On the basis of the above I expect a statement after Wednesday saying that the Club have already identified squad replacements and are well advanced with half a dozen or so already in discussions. Just remember you heard it from the Tea Lady first!
If you want an illustration of the ( quite frankly dire) situation the club is in, take a look at this link. And bear in mind this list is in the process of being culled and will get worse.
Frightening!