Championship Play-off Preview

Crystal Palace vs Watford

The biggest game in World sport. The £50million, £60million, £200million decider. For the victor, rewards beyond their imaginations. The losers? Another season of Championship chaos.

Palace and Watford enter the play-off final at Wembley epitomising two different strategies. Palace relies on a productive youth system, exploiting their relatively large London catchment area (at least compared to other sides in the capital), identifying, nurturing, and then polishing young talent. Wilfried Zaha is the latest starlet off the Palace production line, and the England international will be playing in the Premiership whatever happens, with a summer switch to Manchester United already sealed.

Following him is Jonathan Williams, with a quick google showing links to Tottenham, Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool, and after the Eagles recent financial woes it is fortunate that their academy is so effective and productive. It would please many if a club which relied so heavily on young British talent was able to compete in the Premiership.

Watford, on the other hand, have proved somewhat controversial in their methods. Last summer the Pozzo family took charge at Vicarage Road. The Pozzos own Italian outfit Udinese and Spanish La Liga team Granada, and Watford have joined that affiliation. Udinese are the main club and have an enviable scouting system – players like Alexis Sanchez, Goklan Inler, Fabio Quagliarella and Kwadwo Asamoah are just some of the names to have moved on to bigger and better things, earner Udinese a fortune in the process – while Granada was bought to provide competitive football for those players who could not make it into the Italian side.

Watford initially joined as another feeder club for Udinese, exploiting Football League rules that placed limits on domestic loans but no limit on loans from abroad. While there was little blame on the Hornets for exploiting the gaping hole in the rules, the Football League have moved to outlaw such methods from next season. In the mean time Watford, under Gianfranco Zola, finished just outside the automatic relegation places, experiencing heartbreak on the final day as they failed to get the win that would have seen them in the Premiership already.

The luck that was missing came back in abundance in their play-off semi final, as opponents Leicester missed a penalty that would have won Nigel Pearson’s side the tie, and Watford went up the other end and scoredthe winner through Troy Deeney.

"Whichever team is promoted will face a difficult summer, with players leaving both teams and rivals looking to snap up their talent."

Watford have claimed that they will make the loan moves of players like Matej Vydra, Marco Cassetti and Almen Abdi permanent should they win promotion, and Fernando Forestieri has already made the permanent transfer from Italy to England.

Back in Italy, however, the feeling of Udine fans is thatthe Pozzo family actually prefer English football over their traditionalheartland. The sheer size of the broadcasting revenues in the Premiership has led some fans to accuse the Pozzo son, Gino, of focusing on Watford more and more, and there could be a scenario were Watford become the club with all the star names that loans them out to Udinese – what would the critics say then?

Back to the bank holiday match, and it will be interesting to see who comes out on top. Ian Holloway entertains and annoys in equal measures, while plenty of neutral fans have sympathy for Zola for the way he was treated at West Ham. The likeable Italian and eccentric West Countryman will add some colour to post match interviews, and they both appear to coach their sides to play good, attacking football.

To the game itself, and it looks to be a pretty even affair. Palace will look to Zaha, who scored the two goals that knocked out Brighton in their play-off semi final, and Yannick Bolasie. The absence of Glenn Murray is a big blow and it might need Kevin Phillips to come off the bench and grab the goals that Palace need.

Watford on the other hand have less worries, and will look to Deeney and Vydra to continue their excellent form this season in front of goal. They will come up against Julian Speroni, one of the best keepers in the championship, and whoever comes out on top will decide who wins.

Whichever team is promoted will face a difficult summer, with players leaving both teams and rivals looking to snap up their talent. Neither side is likely to be a big spender and they are likely to struggle in the Premiership next season, much like Reading have this time around. The money on offer, however, will secure either clubs’ future for a few years at least, and after their recent financial woes that is at least something to look forward to.

English Managers are best served staying at home.

Riposte to Football365...

Interesting read on football 365 this morning and I thought I would post a response, not in defence of English coaches but in explanation of what are unique circumstances that deter English coaches from plying their trade abroad.

Following on from my analysis on the lack of candidates, creditable or otherwise, for the England job, let's examine the reasons why English managers do not go abroad to build up the reputation and experience that Daniel Storey feels they need to be viable options for the big one, the sainted role of England manager.

Whether foreign experience is ideal for an England manager is another discussion, but the inherent strength of English club football makes it very difficult for English managers to escape their native land. A never-ending circle keeps them contained within domestic football.

Everyone knows about the bestest league in the world ever!! but the strength of English football is not an inverted, top heavy pyramid, with all the money and power dominated by those fortunately to be in the top league. Okay it is, but the Championship is a top 5 league in terms of attendance, as strong as many top leagues in Europe, and no second division anywhere in the world can match the old Division Two for prestige, quality, finance or support.

No one outside of Germany cares about the Second Bundesliga, no one outside of Italy cares about Serie B (unless they have stopped fixing matches), and the less said about the Segunda division in Spain the better. Teams struggle to get attendances that match League Two teams, while the Championship sells its television rights as far as Brazil!

What does this mean for managers? Working in the Championship will bring higher wages than a bottom half team in Serie A or Ligue 1, domestically it will bring more recognition and a bigger spotlight than mid table obscurity in Portugal or Belgium, and unless you have big success abroad you will not get into the Premiership - look how long it took Hodgson to have a crack in the Premier League despite success in Sweden and with the Swiss national team. Paul Lambert has achieved that with two successive promotions with Norwich.

Teams in the championship can challenge famous teams in Europe. Birmingham, with financial issues demanding their star players are sold off, finished only one point behind Braga, a top four team in Portugal, and Club Brugge. A fallen giant in the championship gives an English manager better career prospects than a gamble abroad.

Steve McClaren moved to Twente and won a league title in his first season. But did that impress back home? Sure, his reputation was in dire need of repair, but he could only find employment in the Championship when he decided to return home (and it will take a minor miracle for him to get another chance in England's top two divisions).

There is another question that needs to be asked: is England the anomaly? Other countries employ a majority of native managers but England was quicker to import players into its league. As such this made foreign managers more acceptable, and the likes of Roberto Martinez or even Roberto Mancini have played in England before managing. If more English players went abroad, would more managers naturally do the same?

With fewer top flight English managers, and foreign leagues only employing a small amount of foreign managers, its unlikely English managers could get a decent job abroad even if they wanted one. It's a vicious circle - more domestic jobs are given to foreigners, reducing the opportunities for English managers to show they have the skill to get a job abroad.

There might also be a kind of reverse-nepotism. If John Smith succeeded in Italy, then questions would ask why he did not succeed in England first. There would always be a fear he would struggle back in his homeland.

When you examine the people who have gone abroad - Hodgson, Richard Money, Peter Taylor, John Gregory, Tony Adams - all of them bar the current West Brom manager went to small clubs or nations in obscure lands on the outskirts of the footballing radar, and even then Hodgson was not a great success at Internazionale.

Ultimately the reason why English managers do not try their luck abroad is because they do not have the reputation on the continent to get a big job. Until English managers start winning big domestic and European titles, build up a reputation as a player (like David Platt at Sampdoria) or take advantage of an influx of English talent into a foreign league, their career prospects are better served fighting their way through the domestic scene, hoping for the chance to break into the big league.

Bellamy still has the Blues

Craig Bellamy has sealed a loan move to Cardiff City, the Bluebirds, and his hometown club. He has left one (sky) blue shirt for another, but is he really happy?

No doubt he still has plenty to offer, despite niggling injuries over recent years, and in some ways he has plenty to prove. A success at Norwich, Coventry, Blackburn, and West Ham, the same cannot be said of his spells at Newcastle, Liverpool and Man City. While he has scored regularly, about 1 in 3.5 despite the injuries and playing out wide a fair few times, he has never really endeared himself to fans and managers. No doubt off the field episodes have soured opinion but will the Welshmen feel he never really delivered at the top level?

Helping Cardiff into the Premiership would be a big achievement for the club and for Wales. Bellamy, surprisingly, has only won a Community Shield and a Scottish Cup, so it would at least add to his footballing CV but it will never add the glory to his career. No doubt he has plenty to be proud of - Captaining his country and gaining 59 caps is an excellent achievement - but would he have preferred to have another crack at the Champions League with Tottenham? What about a cup run with Fulham? Or even a fighting chance of glory with Man City?

Quite a few players end their careers with a last hurrah at their boyhood club. Bellamy has more years left in the tank than most of these players and its not inconceivable that he could get Cardiff promoted and make a real difference in the Premiership for a couple of years. Some might say its the easy route to retirement. The pressures are less and the opposition poorer, and as he is still capable of electrifying pace, Bellamy should stand head and shoulders above the rest.

When all is said and done, I think Bellamy will still have a few regrets, and rue the City management for forcing him into the Championship before he was ready.