duncanjwitham

Assuming that the money is spent well of course...

With the ultimate irony being that 'The Derby Way' was supposed to be about creating a sustainable structure that could get us up and then keep us up. 'owt to get up' is a recipe for Billy Davies-style up and then straight back down.

His entire game plan was based around individual players winning games for us - so the back 7 control the game, then Ince/Martin/Butterfield/whoever scores a scores a screamer and we win. That might work when you have Ronaldo and Bale, or Robben and Lewandowski up front, but it's never going to be sustainable at this level - there just isn't a big enough quality gap between the best forwards (we can afford) in this league and the average defenders. Teams then start to realise that can just focus on taking the key players out of the game (double up on Ince, close Butterfield down, stop the supply into martin's feet etc), and the low numbers of goals we were scoring means that any mistakes at the back end up costing us games which piles pressure on the defence. A good run of form, confidence and luck carried us for a couple of months. But it was never going to last IMO.

But that isn't 'tucked in on the left'. At least not in the way Johnson was being used at Norwich. They played a 442 diamond, with Johnson on the left of the 4 - in effect he was doing the same job that Bryson did for McClaren (albeit in a much more direct system). The way Rowett wants us to play seemingly involves a lot of balls over the top for wingers to run onto, and Johnson is never going to be able to do that. So if he gets stuck out wide, he either ends up sitting deep and we lack support in the final third (and the only gain is that the opposition now have 3 static midfielders to run past instead of 2). Or he ends up pushing right up and we leave a gaping hole in front of the left back. If we want to use Johnson in a similar way to Norwich but in a 4231, we need a forward that can hold the ball up, and then let Johnson play in the hole behind and just cause havoc there, barge about, knock people over, get on all the loose balls and knockdowns etc. We'd also need a mobile midfielder to play in the 2 alongside Huddlestone, and we'd have to drop Vydra too, so I don't see what we're gaining.

The other thing we don't know about the scouting network, is whether their recommendations are actually being listened to. For all we know, we could have located 20 brilliant holding midfielders in Europe, but Rowett said no and just wanted to sign one of his Birmingham mates. The whole process is a black box, and from outside we have no idea where the failures are occurring.

But Watford don't keep changing style when they change manager. They have an overall philosophy at the club, and appoint managers that will follow that. Our last 5 manager have all been radically different in style to the previous one, which is why we've got such a mess of a squad.

The fault is that we were trying to sign a player to fulfill a fundamental requirement of the system Rowett wants to play, 5 minutes before the deadline. We've obviously needed a player like that all summer - it should have been done months before.

Exactly. So why can a random fan from another club (no offence!) spot in one game what rowett's failed to see in 6 months?

We were also on a run of 7 games without a win, and showing absolutely no clue how to turn it around, at the point clement was sacked. It wasn't like we we're flying at that point. And we hadn't really played that well all season either, despite the league position.

I'm not sure he can drop the poor performers, we've literally got no one else in some cases.

Because he's all about getting the ball from back to front quickly. So that's either long balls to a strikers head/chest, or balls over the top for forwards to run onto. If we get the ball forward and hold it up, I think rowetts more than happy to play to feet from there, but we rarely get that far, because it goes forward and doesn't stick.

He's spent a fair bit, but we probably are in profit this summer, which you certainly can't say for previous windows. And the wage bill and squad size are probably down as well. So like I said, it's not completely his fault, but he will certainly have to take the blame for the actual players we have signed f they don't work out.

He can't hold the ball up when it's being played direct from the defence though, Martin needs it into feet, and we just don't play that way under Rowett.

Rowett had a requirement to reduce the squad size, and reduce the wage bill. So we spent a fair amount making slight improvements to centre half and right back and signed a midfielder that couldn't do the job he needed to do. (No comment on Lawrence yet, as I haven't seen enough of him. ) And all this while not getting in players that were fundamental to the way Rowett wanted to play - a mobile, tough tackling midfielder and someone up front that could hold the ball up. We might not have wasted the millions that we've wasted in previous seasons, but we've had a reasonable turnover of players without making any overall improvement to the squad.

Exactly. The transfers this season have been very bit as bad as previous ones. It's not all Rowetts fault given the budget he was working on, but what he has spent he's spent pretty badly. And it's not that the players he's signed are necessarily bad, but they either can't do what he wants them to do, or we've sold players without adequately replacing them.