Giving Tom Watford’s top job would be the Clever move for all parties
The more things change, the more they stay the same, the saying goes. Watford Football Club is the embodiment of that.
For the third successive year, the Hornets will end the season with an interim head coach. In 2022, it was the cantankerous Roy Hodgson who oversaw our miserable relegation from the Premier League while blowing kisses to his adoring public at Selhurst Park. In 2023, it was the somewhat aloof and blasé Chris Wilder who was at the helm for a listless and limp finish as the playoffs rapidly disappeared from view.
Which brings us to the present campaign. While it too is drifting to fairly forgettable finish, unlike those who have gone before him, Tom Cleverley is at least young and has a genuine affinity with the club he is serving. He also has a chance — perhaps not a big one — of landing the job on a full-time basis. Were this any other club, the appointment would probably be heralded as a nice story by the mainstream media. The Manchester United youngster who honed his craft on loan at Vicarage Road as a teenager before going onto win England caps and Premier League titles, later returning to captain the same club, coach its under-18s and lead it to Championship survival.
Except, of course, Watford isn’t any other club. We already know how this ends. Whether in May, October or some time next year, Cleverley or an external candidate will get the job on a full-time basis, and they will be sacked. What we don’t know is whether Gino Pozzo will hand Cleverley the reins on a permanent basis in the first place. He’s certainly not done his chances of landing the role any harm so far. The first half against Leeds United was one of the best of the season — arguably only topped by going 4–0 ahead against Queens Park Rangers on the opening day.
In five games, the 34-year-old has yet to taste defeat, collecting seven points from fixtures universally recognised as tough. Ostensibly, that was precisely why Cleverley — less than a year into his youth coaching career— got the gig in the first place. With only a handful of points needed to ensure the Hornets weren’t dragged into the relegation battle, Pozzo and co. had greater faith in the under-18 coach to get Watford over the line than the experienced but besieged Valérien Ismaël. That trust has proved well placed on the limited evidence we have.
The crucial win at Birmingham City, who have since been dragged down by the dead men, was not pretty. On the face of it, there was little difference from an Ismaël team or performance. But pragmatism won out as this was the last ‘winnable’ fixture on paper for the Hornets before the hellish run against promotion and playoff hopefuls began. A scrappy 1–0 win was the minimum viable product but the reward of three points was all that mattered.
Since then, we’ve seen Cleverley’s tactical nous come to the fore, switching to a back three in an attempt to tighten up and increase threat up front. It would still be fun — other adjectives are available — to see Vakoun Bayo and Mileta Rajović paired up front together before the season is out. But it has been refreshing to see the head coach try to find solutions with the players he has available. While I’d have loved to have seen Ismaël finish the season — not out of any loyalty to him, just to prove we could go a season without sacking a head coach— he did himself few favours by reportedly rejecting signings while sticking stoically with the same team and system until the final throes of his reign, all while bemoaning the tiredness of his small squad. All while taking on a larger role in the recruitment process than any of his (many) predecessors.
With safety virtually secured and the season drifting to another inauspicious finish, we endure a game-by-game social media referendum on Cleverley’s future. Good result? Definitely the right man, he’s been under Pozzo’s nose all along and only an idiot wouldn’t be able to see it. Bad result? Out of his depth, it’s come too early, we need an experienced hand the tiller.
The reality? All those things could still be true. Cleverley is five games into his career as a first-team coach. This has been the ultimate crash course in frontline football management for someone who was still a player this time last year and Cleverley will doubtless have viewed it as a nine-game audition for the top job. In a lot of ways, it makes sense to hand him the role full-time.
He will be popular with supporters — perhaps more so than any coach has ever been at the start of their reign since Malky Mackay. That has benefits for Pozzo, Duxbury and co. too. He will get more patience and backing from the Vicarage Road faithful at a time when the team is likely to need it. I am not expecting much different next season from this, so having a coach who will automatically start with credit in the bank will, cynically, act as a bit of a human shield for the decision makers in WD18. It should also set the expectation level very clearly, too. There can be no ambiguity about placing someone with nine game of first-team management experience in the role full time. That will signify loud and clear that a season of treading water is expected, particularly if spending is restricted and young talents including Yáser Asprilla and Ismaël Koné are sold to balance the books.
For the last two seasons we’ve been told by the club how handing the new man the keys early would be a benefit. First, when Rob Edwards was unveiled before the final home game of the season. Then, when Ismaël began in May last year. In the event, it did neither of them much good. In Cleverley, Watford not only have the option to make an early appointment, they have someone they know intrinsically and will have seen in action for two-and-a-half months before having to make a decision.
In vindicating historic sackings, the club has told us how football results alone don’t always dictate the success or failure of a head coach within the Hornets’ structure; that ways of working and fit within the organisation carry a lot of weight. So there can be no nasty surprises when it comes to Cleverley, in that case. He, too, would go into the role eyes wide open. He has seen it all here as a player, captain, coach and now manager.
All that said, I don’t actually expect Cleverley to be given the job. Frankly, it’s too sensible and goes against the grain when it comes to Pozzo signings. With one or two notable exceptions, Watford head coaches have — for all their differences — been united by A) Their experience and B) Their Watford experience. Namely, being sacked. One of those notable exceptions was, of course, Edwards. An experience Pozzo will doubtless have been burned by. Not least because all evidence points to that appointment being Duxbury’s rather than his own. It’s also hard to shake the expectation that an inherent belief remains within the club that with one or two smart additions and the right coach, Watford can nick a playoff place, get promoted and all our worries go away — owner included.
As well as that, who wants to see Cleverley treated poorly? None of us. He might not quite get ‘legend’ status but he’s certainly a modern-day Watford favourite. Here for the good and bad times, when we were paupers and (relative) kings, too. For a Mancunian, he’s probably got as much affinity with this club as United. Returning to my earlier assertion: we all know how this ends. For all those reasons, Cleverley deserves better and if we follow this to its logical conclusion, you’d hope there’s something in any future agreement that allows him to return to a role within the club — if he wants it — rather than joining the ever-expanding list of ‘Former Watford head coaches’. Membership, I understand, is at an all-time high for that particular club!
Finally, and perhaps most pertinently, is it simply a case of re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic until the real problem is dealt with? We’ve all got our views on that but the trials and tribulations of the head coaches who have been and gone are the sympton, not the cause of the club’s ills. Recruitment — whether the domain of Pozzo, Duxbury or now Gian Luca Nani — has been bad for too long. I’m not going to take a deep dive into that as I don’t think it’s required to convince anyone. But until that is fixed, it probably doesn’t matter who gets the role on a full-time basis.
But Cleverley knows all that. He would know what he’s getting himself into. As clichés go, it’s an all-timer. But in the case of the madhouse that is Watford, the fact he ‘knows the club’ can only be of benefit to all parties.