Hey, hey my Saint's bet looking like a piece of genius now, 4-1 up at HT! End of the dream for Aston Villa I guess? Don't normally root for Everton but I need them and Spurs to win for today's remainder of Steve's Magic;)
Watford shouldn't be fighting for a promotion anyway, they relegated just this year and usually when a team gets relegated its always smarter to build a financially solid team for the next stage instead of trying to go back. Right now they have almost all the players they had last year, Sarr is still with the team and thats a big step but right now they are paying and have a high cost like a premier league team, whereas in reality they are making a championship amount of money in return.
I would say 2-3 seasons of making sure the team is financially solid and could afford to go back above would be ideal. If they could build a roster with decent salaries and can go higher, they could make few more additions and could stay there longer instead of going right back down. Having premier league payments on a championship level will only keep them at this level of talent and that wouldn't really help them in the long term.
Rebuilding is not something bad, championship is still one of the most respected leagues out there in the world, and even though its second division under premier league, its still a fierce competition as well, and they are doing great there already, all they have to do is find players that could help them fight which won't take huge salaries, thats going to take a few years and after that they will be ready to promote with championship income and not spend premier league amount of salaries.
Always depends, but certainly in Watford's case I think, who've lose key players and are always in danger of losing Sarr, they just need to focus on financial stability -- first-teamers for sure, and Covid's just made that a whole lot more complicated. I totally agree rebuilding isn't a bad thing. Looking back at Gerrard's slip when we last almost won the title pre-Klopp, I often wonder how we would have looked like had we won. Probably never rebuilt, never taken Klopp, never lost Suarez, etc. And then we might have masked old, underlying problems.
Also agree. Championship is still a competitive league, I do enjoy the pace there, and directness, as opposed to Prem's less frantic, more organised play.