Last night's fan forum went into more detail on the roles of the key staff at the training ground, and then also discussed communication - including some very recent communication from Troy Deeney which wasn't well received.

People don’t quite understand what’s happening. There hasn’t been the same level of transparency as there is in other teams. Would it be possible to get some sort of ‘org chart’ so everyone can understand what everyone is doing, across the top table of the club? We’re hearing today there is a philosophy, there is a way of trying to do something, and there’s a way of trying to support the manager. It would be really good to understand who has those particular responsibilities for what. Is Scott Duxbury involved in transfers? In a 2018 interview with the Financial Times he said he was an integral part of the transfer decision making, however he told the Watford Observer in 2022 he wasn’t. Yet a recent interview with Ben Manga suggests Duxbury is involved in transfers. Which one is correct?

SD: “All of them are correct [laughter from the audience]. The club evolves. If you’re saying responsibility for all transfers then it’s obviously Cristiano and Ben, but nobody decides in isolation. The coach will be involved. And then when it comes to the final sign-off, myself and Gino will be involved.

“The day-to-day scouting, the day-to-day recommendations, the negotiations, it’s Ben and Cristiano. This has evolved over time as our scouting and technical department have improved. As chairman I will always have a final overseeing of what’s happening. That’s how we operate: everything in collaboration and no-one in isolation will make a decision, and we work together.

“We’ve no problem with a chart. What’s the best way to get it out there? Our website?”

Andrew – Watford Observer? [thumbs up given]. That’s a yes.

Without communication nobody that’s here can have any empathy with what’s going on. Bringing that transparency, bringing everybody in, helps a huge deal. So there’s a couple of questions around the culture. Scott I want to turn to you on that, because you said about this I remember when we appointed Marco Silva and you also said the same thing about Rob, and you used words akin to ‘a cultural architect’, someone who was going to come in as an ambassador. These things seemed to be important at the time. Having looked at criteria of other managers, is it something that you want the managers to do? I think it’s part of the problem with the transparency. The culture and the ambassadorial elements of the club are very difficult to continue when you have that sort of rotation. Therefore the actual communication an identity, as well as the disparate nature of the game, seems to become like a snow all developing.

SD: “I agree entirely, that’s why we go back to the fact we are looking for that stability. It’s a very simple concept. In English football particularly the face and identity of the club is the coach. If you’re constantly changing the coach, your identity and your DNA appears to be constantly changing.

“We know behind the scenes we’ve got that stability. That’s why we’ve had 11 years if where we are. It’s difficult then to get that communication to the supporters when the coach is continually changing. We try: we do events like this and we’re going to reactive At Your Place to try and do that.

“But the ideal scenario is we have a coach that represents all the values of the club, communicates excellently with the supporters and gives that clear messaging. When you look at Brighton, you’re not looking at Paul Barber, you’re looking at the coach. When you look at Brentford you’re looking at Franke. That’s what we need to achieve. We’re not saying it’s a complete failure what we’ve done, but we know where we need to get to next to solve many problems, including what you said then.”

Coming back to Ben and Cristiano’s roles, what we’re seeing again in one of Andrew’s pieces when he spoke to Ben, one of the things he said – and I appreciate this went through very many layers of interpretation so correct us where we’re wrong here – I believe Ben said that he hoped Gino would learn to trust him when it comes to management appointments. What does trust look like, how much of it is a committee, and how influential are your influencers?

GP: “It comes back to what Scott was saying before. We don’t make decisions in isolation. We actually like to bring in, and exchange, all the information and people. Of course the ones that will be the most influential is the one that knows the manager. So the one that proposed the manager might have more elements to bring to the table than we might have.

“I like to go through this with a logical conclusion, and not an act of faith. You’ve got to trust. I have no problem as long as there is a logical sequence of information. That brings trust, it’s not a blind faith, it’s logical. What you are bringing to the table is something we can support. Otherwise, with something like that, you are really only looking at the results and we would like to see that whatever has been presented to us then is reflected every day on the pitch, and then on the weekend at the games.

“The level of trust is required always. That’s why we question. That’s why we say what information, based on what? What is the piece of information? That is the kind of analysis we do before we make any kind of decision. And I think that’s much stronger.”

You want to see the evidence?

GP: “Yes of course. For any coach who is hard working and is good at certain things, then when we come to the real world, what I am expecting is to see that in place. Then if when the coach arrives here and he doesn’t do what he’s supposed to do, then maybe I question him.”

I just wanted to ask a simple question. An ex-player has said this week the coming and going of managers has made no effect on the players because the manager doesn’t choose the team. Is that true, and if that is true, who chooses the team? Because they’re the people that ought to be getting sacked, not the manager surely?

SD: “The same former player said the speed bumps were removed but it’s true the speed bump is still there. [Laughter around the room].

“There were many things that were said in that article that aren’t true. And that’s it.

“I spoke to the former player the other day, and he said he was misquoted. What he was saying…”

It came out of his mouth.

SD: “Yeah, it came out of his mouth in a podcast so it’s difficult to be misquoted. But what he’s said he was trying to say, but I agree what he said wasn’t saying this, but what he said was that it never affected the players because there was such stability here with the infrastructure and that’s what he meant. But that’s certainly not what was said or what was written.

“It doesn’t bear too much analysis. I think it’s more of a condemnation of the former player than it is of the club. So I think it was an ill-advised comment.”

I wasn’t going to mention Troy but as he’s come up I think one of the key components that’s been missing – for me anyway, and my friends – is a leader on the pitch, and a leader within the club. Great to have the opportunity to meet you tonight Gino, and Scott again. But Troy was a voice. Troy was something the fans could relate to. We seem to have a bunch of mercenary players if you like. They come and they go, but there’s no connection with the fans. You mentioned that the manager doesn’t help with the signing of players, he identifies the players. I was really underwhelmed by our performance in the January transfer window when Araujo was clearly a world-class player but not suited to Championship football. Martins is similar. Our loan signings throughout the season didn’t really pull up any trees. The recruitment is the main question. A leader and players who are best suited to managers like Slaven and Chris Wilder probably might give you a bit of a hand up there. What are your comments?

SD: “I agree, and what gives a certain degree of optimism for this pre-season, and we were talking about it before, it’s the first time every player who walks in the building wants to be here, and wants to play. And importantly they’ve been identified by the coach as somebody he wants.

“So we all know about Sarr, put him to one side. Everybody else here wants to be here, will be here and wants to play, and we start to get an identity. We’ve got a core of a team, we’ve got a core of good players. We’ve got a core of defence, a core of midfield. People can identify that by being here some time now, the player wants to be here. There are gaps and I agree with you, we need that leader, we need that captain.

“But I think we’re bringing in people like Porteous, who have that leadership, who can be a captain. But we’re not blind to it and we fully agree. But the coach will make that decision, the coach will identify those types of characteristics. It isn’t just about us bringing in a name once we’ve identified the characteristics – we give him a list of players that match those characteristics and he chooses, yes that’s the one. Then we try and get that player.

“So it’s more than characteristics. He is choosing the player once we’ve done the work, well once Ben and Cristiano have done the work. I fully agree that’s the kind of thing we’re missing but like I say we have a core of a team that’s coming here on Monday. He wants a seven-week pre-season to put that work in, so when we see the first game of the season they’ll be running, and running, and running. Commitment will not be questioned. We have a core players here on Monday that all want to be here. It’s been four years, matching the poor period we’ve had, since we’ve had that.

“We’ve had squads of players not training or not wanting to be here. That’s all gone. Monday, everyone wants to work, everybody wants to be here. That’s a good sign.”

You talk about characteristics identified by the manager, and then we go and find a player. What about the mental characteristics? What about the psychological profiling? That seems to be the component part that we’re talking about as missing. What we tend to say is, what a lot of people we talk to say is, there’s a lack of leaders in there. I think that’s what we’ve almost identified when we say about ‘since Troy left’. Is that something Valerien has identified and communicated for us to go and do something about?

SD: “Completely, and it forms part of the profile of the players that we want, and it’s not just technical ability, it is that mental attitude, that ability to be aware. It’s all part of the profile of the certain players he wants. He has a clear identity and a clear formation he wants to play. That makes building the squad from day one very, very, very simple.

“For the first time, I repeat, we’ll have seven weeks with a squad that’s all working for the first game of the season. We’ve not had that for some time.”