Watford FC: An apology
I’ve always liked to think I’m a patient, rational, logical, and, above all, sensible football fan. For the most part, I still think I am. But I definitely got it wrong this season.
On February 18, after Watford’s frankly deplorable goalless draw against Coventry City, I called for the head of coach Xisco Muñoz. To my mind, there was a cold, hard logic to it. At that point, there had been virtually no tangible improvement since he replaced Vladimir Ivić eight games prior and, with promotion the only acceptable outcome from this season, a difficult decision had to be taken.
More than that, I reasoned, Watford under Pozzo rule don’t mess around. If something needs changing, Gino Pozzo and Scott Duxbury aren’t afraid to do it, even if it brings undue criticism from the outside world. Whatever else you can level at the club’s hierarchy, they aren’t weak. They do make tough — often unpopular — decisions and they always act with the club’s best interests.
Sacking Billy McKinlay after two games as head coach — from which he claimed four points — was ruthless but, in the end, vindicated. Ditto ditching Slaviša Jokanović after the hugely popular Serbian delivered promotion back to the Promised Land in 2015. Quique Sánchez Flores kept Watford up — with ease — and the ends justified the means.
So, in my mind, it was going to happen anyway. By this point, Watford were fifth. Why lose further ground on the top two by waiting another few weeks before pulling the trigger? Lo and behold, I was wrong. Here we are, not even May, and Watford are back in the Premier League having played some excellent football, designed a tactical blueprint to take us forward, and with any looming financial concerns vanquished.
I am big enough and ugly enough to put my hands up and say I got it wrong. While I stand by my original logic, I was being impatient and the subsequent weeks of the season have proven Muñoz clearly was capable of turning the tide.
The St. Andrews stalemate was the lowest ebb of the season. Watford hardly conjured up a single chance and Troy Deeney spent most of the game as an auxiliary right-back. Something had to change.
So credit where credit is due. Watford switched from a stodgy, lifeless, 4–4–2 with Will Hughes — never in a million years a winger — stationed on the left to a 4–3–3 with Hughes at the base of midfield, breaking up opposition attacks and dictating play. It was, quite simply, a masterstroke, and the turning point in the season. The cynic in me wonders whether it was Muñoz’s decision, a nudge from above, the changing room’s demand, or a combination of factors. It was, after all, following the Coventry game the players — led by William Troost-Ekong, we’ve since learned — held clear-the-air talks.
No doubt we were fortunate it was a horribly out-of-sorts Bristol City side up next. The improvement was ten-fold, even accounting for the Robins being dreadful and Ismaïla Sarr having the freedom of their left-hand side, but Watford laid the groundwork for the rest of the season that afternoon. They’ve lost just twice since and won 12 of 15 games. The intensity, verticality, fluidity and threat posed on that afternoon has been almost ever-present and teams simply haven’t been able to live with us.
Including that demolition, Sarr has scored seven, assisted two, and won countless games on his own. He has been every bit the £35million player we signed with an eye on better things in the summer of 2019. Clearly, the pandemic has been shit for everyone but, if we allow ourselves to be a bit selfish, it probably helped Watford hold onto their best player. With revenue streams hit hard by empty stadiums, no one had the cash to gamble on a player with a single Premier League season under his belt. Not at Watford’s asking price, at least. As the team’s confidence grew, so did Sarr’s. He became the unstoppable, immovable, irresistible force of nature we’d hoped and opposition full-backs were slain week after week. His combination play with Kiko Femenía was a joy to behold. Their understanding, working in tandem down the right, has been the source of so many goals — and even more chances. Teams simply haven’t had an answer to their pace and directness.
Those two words sum up the very evident and incredibly emphatic improvement in Watford since February 18. Where once they were slow, cumbersome and, ultimately, blunt, the Hornets have become a clinical attacking force when it mattered most. And while no one has once looked like having a 20-goal season, it hasn’t mattered. This team has so many weapons and it feels like several campaigns wrapped up in one, each with its own protagonist. There was the early period under Ivić where possession was staid and sterile. Then there was the Deeney period where penalties were the order of the day. After that it all went a bit shonky and we came as close as we have to coming off the rails. Yet, critically — and unlike promotion rivals Brentford and Swansea City — we never actually hit the skids. Since the Bristol City demolition, it’s been full steam ahead. Sarr has found another gear, João Pedro has grown and grown, Philip Zinckernagel has chipped in, Femenía has played the best football of his Watford career and, crucially, the rest of the squad has stepped up when it mattered. Be it Adam Masina’s free-kick at Cardiff or Dan Gosling’s clincher at Norwich, Muñoz’s men have almost always found a way through.
Underpinning all of this, though, has been a rock-solid defence. Yet even that seems implausible when you consider Ben Foster has missed half the season due to injury. Femenía could very easily have left for Russia and Francisco Sierralta, potentially the stand-out of the whole defensive unit, did not make his first league appearance until Boxing Day. Where once Ivić rotated between Craig Cathcart, Troost-Ekong, Christian Kabasele and Ben Wilmot, Muñoz has stuck rigidly with Sierralta and Troost-Ekong. The latter’s passing is, well, nerve-shredding but, as a pair they’ve been virtually faultless.
A word, too, for Daniel Bachmann who, when last seen in competitive action, was written off by a section of our fanbase. A shaky debut in the FA Cup third-round balls-up against Tranmere Rovers, the Austrian ended up as de-facto No2 when Heureho Gomes retired but bided his time and has been one of the big winners from this season. Foster, brilliant though he clearly is, has scarcely been missed and Bachmann’s almost-faultless distribution has played a significant part in the change of style. Picking between those two next season will not be easy.
And so to next season.
Given the week it’s been in football-land, it’s hard not to reflect on this through the lens of the Greedy Boys’ League — or whatever it was called. Watford will never be a team invited to that exclusive members’ club and I know I speak for other Hornets supporters when I say ‘Thank fuck’. But this is what football’s about. The joy, the elation, the art of the possible; opportunity, meritocracy. We have been one of the two best teams and we will enjoy our prize, thank you very much. This season has been — if not always, then for two-thirds at least — very enjoyable. Winning games is rarely not fun — though, at times, we tested that theory — and next season is clearly going to be a slog.
The Championship has felt like a pretty neat antidote to the Greedy Boys’ League. But let’s not kid ourselves, the Premier League is little better. It will be back to aiming for survival as a minimum and being patronised by Gary Lineker and co. as a matter of course. And woe betide us for wanting better than yo-yo-ing.
When Watford were relegated a year ago, I kidded myself I was pleased. Pleased to be out of the Premier League and its glass ceiling, knowing the best we could hope for was mid-table. What fun is going after eight or nine wins a season? With hindsight, this feels like a defence mechanism. But I was ‘perfectly happy’ to be heading back to the Championship. I can confidently say that was something else I got wrong. I haven’t invested in this league. I’ve listened to the excellent Not The Top 20 podcast, and I’ll continue to do so to keep my hand in, but I’ve not watched the Quest highlights since September. I’ve not watched Championship fixtures that don’t involve Watford and I’ve not truly invested in this league as I did before.
Everything about the Championship somehow feels impertient compared to when we were last here. And I feel dirty, snobby almost, saying that. Particularly when it’s been the baseline for the majority of my Watford-supporting life. Before the Pozzo family came along, my only frame of reference as an almost-29-year-old fan was single-season stays in the Premier League when it felt like we’d snuck past the bouncer and knew we’d be turfed out imminently. After five seasons of dining and belonging at the top table, returning to EFL took some adjustment. Don’t get me wrong, I still dislike a lot about The Greatest League in the world — not least its sense of self-importance — but I’ve realised it’s better to be in the club than out.
There are a lot of questions to be answered still. Will Muñoz remain in charge? He doesn’t have the requisite license to coach in England’s top-flight but, according to The Athletic’s Adam Leventhal, Watford are committed to the personable Spaniard. Who will be No1? Who will be our No9? Will we cling onto Sarr? But all that can wait. For now, there’s only one thing to say:
Come on the boys.