With the cheers and delight of a barmy afternoon at Fulham still in the
memory we now stand on the brink of a new season. Football never really
went away this summer, with the World Cup dominating centre stage for a
month. Since then, several miles of tabloid column inches have been
devoted to who is moving to where next season and what odds on Charlton
being relegated by Christmas. The problem is that all this hype and talk
of big money still revolves around the top few clubs in England and
Rangers.
In Division 1 the talk is much more reserved with managers resorting to
the good old tactics of haggling out a bargain, not just turning up with a
vast cheque book. In this sense, Watford have done as well as anybody to
pick players of good potential for relatively small sums of money.
Enough talk of the state of our game, what you all want to know is where I
think the Golden Boys will finish up this season. Well, my title rather
gives it away - I think we will end up in mid table. Realistically, this
season is a case of rebuilding again for the next push. We have escaped
the hellish mire that was Division 2 and must now look onwards and
hopefully upwards. The main aim for this season is to provide a firm
foundation for the future to avoid getting into this sort of mess again.
As it stands at the moment we do not have the players to lift us out of
this division.
I do not doubt the skill of our players, although I do feel we lack a
number of the quality players that Sunderland and the others have. More
importantly, this division is full of hardened campaigners who have played
a lot of games in this division. Watford lack this. Sure, Ronny has
played at the top level but that is not the same as fighting and
scrapping it out week in week out in the middle of winter at places like
Stockport. Our squad is solid with largely consistent, if unspectacular,
players who are committed to playing as a team. This will keep us up but
I do not feel it will get us out of this league this season.
In GT we have one of the few managers in this league that I think most
clubs would probably want in charge. He is a shrewd business man and a
good judge of a player. His tactical awareness and ability to change
things around if need be is worth a few points over a lot of clubs. For
him, however, the club at the moment does not quite have the momentum of
fifteen years ago - and even then it took more than one attempt to get out of the division.
A further concern of mine is Alec Chamberlain in goal. Now, to be honest,
I have not seen that much of him play but from what I have seen I would
make the following comments. He is an excellent shot stopper and on the
whole organises his defence well...but he is suspect on crosses. We may
find this season that, under concerted pressure from quality forward lines
and midfields, Alec struggles on a few occassions. Don't get me wrong, I
don't think he should be dropped or replaced, nor do I think he is in the
realms of "dodgy keeper" but I am concerned that his weaknesses might be
exposed at this level - something that is true for a lot of our players.
Well, I would love to be proved wrong. I think that if we have the rub of
the green for the whole season we could just about sneak into the
playoffs. Likewise if things don't go quite right we will flirt with
relegation for a while. Mid table, whilst being a safe bet, is also a
realistic position. Anything else is a bonus. For the
record, I think Sunderland will win the league and teams who might
struggle are QPR and Oxford. All I know is that come May 1999 we will
know one way or the other. Enjoy the season and hopefully I might get to
meet some of you on a distant terrace some day.