Watford must pick up the Bil for failings this season — not Slaven
“You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain,” Harvey Dent quipped in The Dark Knight. It’s a quote that has an uncanny pertinence when it comes to Watford in 2023.
If you take the temperature of the Hornets’ fanbase via social media — and, as always, I’ll warn against doing precisely that as I leap in head first — Gino Pozzo has outlived heroism. So too has Slaven Bilić in some quarters. It’s not universal and it might not live outside of social media. By all accounts, Bilić’s name was being sung at Reading recently. But it’s more than a murmur now.
The stats (prior to tonight’s trip to Championship leaders Burnley) don’t make great reading. Three wins from 12 and only a pair of first-half goals since November 8 are hardly what Pozzo would have had in mind when he dispensed with Rob Edwards after 10 Championship games. That’s Edwards, by the way, who has hoisted Luton Town into fourth place — ahead of Watford — and won 53 per cent of his games at the Kennel. Could it be that he was a good coach but just needed time, a coherent structure, and backing from those above him? Surely not.
Anyway, Bilić. It’s taken me by surprise how quickly some have switched targets from Pozzo to the Croatian. It wasn’t that long ago — again, this from social media — we were having serious talks about protests against the owner. These amounted to little, doubtless quelled by the resounding 4–0 win at Stoke City in Bilić’s first game after Edwards’ sacking. At least, it was resounding in the second half — a sign of things to come!
There is a school of thought that says if we accept Pozzo takes a short-term view of his head coaches, we should judge Bilić through that lens, too. That is hard to argue with. It became quite apparent when Edwards’ ill-fated spell was prematurely cut short that talk of a ‘cultural reset’ was fluff and the aim — expectation, in fact — was promotion at all costs. Anything else was lip service and for whatever reason (speculate among yourselves) an immediate return to the Premier League was paramount.
For that reason, Bilić probably should be facing a level of scrutiny. At the end of this three-game run which sees us face Burnley, a resurgent West Bromwich Albion, and Sheffield United, Watford could be out of the playoffs. Yet when Edwards was binned, the majority of supporters I engaged with felt it was the wrong decision and were happy to have a second season in the Championship if it meant a long overdue change of approach.
So Bilić is hardly delivering on the short-term aim of promotion. He’s not faring much better in terms of imprinting an identity on this side either.
That can hardly be surprising when we’ve just seen seven players signed in January. A further five notionally first-team players (William Troost-Ekong, Rey Manaj, Vakoun Bayo, Kortney Hause and Dan Gosling) have moved away, or out of the 25-man squad altogether. Three of those were summer signings. That is about as clear an admission of fault last summer as we’re ever going to get.
Suddenly, Bilić has had to bed in seven new players. All of which have come from other leagues and situations. Ismaël Koné is not long back from the World Cup. João Ferreira and Henrique Araújo were playing B-team football. Britt Assombalonga wasn’t really playing any football. Arguably the only players who have come in match sharp were Ryan Porteous and Wesley Hoedt — it should be little surprise that they’ve made the biggest and best impression so far.
At the same time, Bilić has had to contend with an injury crisis that would have made Harry ‘down to the bare bones’ Redknapp blush. Without 15 first-team players at one point, it was less a case of selecting the best team and more of finding 11 players who could start. Rumours of conscription being introduced in Hertfordshire for men aged between 18–30 proved unfounded, though!
How anyone could be expected to build a coherent style of play and get a consistent level of performance, under those circumstances, is beyond me.
Let’s not forget how recently we were lining up with Jeremy Ngakia, Leandro Bacuna, Mario Gaspar and Tom Dele-Bashiru in midfield against Swansea City. The performance was an aberration but it was not the only starting XI that took longer to figure out than the Hornets’ defence.
Even now, we still have eight players unavailable: Francisco Sierralta, Ngakia, Hause (returned to Aston Villa), Gosling (omitted from 25-man squad due to injury), Craig Cathcart, Edo Kayembe, Samuel Kalu, and Ferreira.
Ken Sema, Tom Cleverley, and Imrân Louza returned in Saturday’s draw with Blackburn Rovers — while João Pedro made his first start following an absence —but Watford cannot afford to mismanage their involvement in a desperate attempt to save their season.
None of which is to overlook the faults in Bilić’s tenure so far. Some of his in-game decision-making has been baffling. Ditto his sudden disinterest in Yáser Asprilla who has been on the few highlights this season with his impish displays.
Despite all this, Watford are fith in the Championship for non-penalty xG since the World Cup break:
- West Bromwich Albion (14.82)
- Coventry City (13.95)
- Hull City (13.75)
- Sunderland (12.48)
- Watford (12.15)
They’re also fifth for touches in the opposition box. An xG under-performance of -3.93 (inc. set-pieces) points to a problem converting chances. With Koné’s miss against Blackburn fresh in the mind, that can hardly come as a surprise.
On the other side of the ball, Watford’s non-penalty xG conceded figure in the same period is 10.82, or the ninth-worst in the division. The Hornets are ninth for open-play goals conceded with 11. In short, we are probably about where we should be on expected metrics. Wasteful in front of goal and a little soft at the back. But where we should be give or take.
This season has been a mess from start to finish. The recruitment, the bungled opportunity with Edwards, the bizarre decision to retain Cristiano Giaretta, the uncertainty surrounding the futures of Pedro and Ismaïla Sarr, the latter’s form and, of course, the injuries. None of that is Bilić’s fault. That was made quite clear by the refusal to sign the midfielder and winger the former West Ham manager requested — more than once! — during January.
Bilić is a cog in the machine. He is not the machine. No one is bigger than the machine, we know this. So he cannot shoulder all the blame. Equally, there is a case to be made that he was the wrong appointment all along. He has a good CV and got West Brom out of this division in 2020. But it cannot have come as a surprise to Pozzo and co. that he is a manager who speaks his mind. Emphasis on ‘manager’, rather than head coach.
But there’s an elephant in the room. Ben Manga’s December arrival gave cause for optimism. His record in the Bundesliga with Eintracht Frankfurt speaks for itself and one has to assume he did not walk away from that role to join a second-tier club and become a stooge for the owner. He has to take a central role in the reset that must come this summer.
Bilić is highly unlikely to survive that. Manga will want a coach that fits his philosophy and rightly so. But Bilić should not pay for the mess Watford find themselves in now; this awkward purgatory where it’s quite clear we aren’t one of the division’s best teams yet equally possible we sneak our way back into The Promised Land. Thanks to the ridiculously chaotic nature of a distinctly average Championship, Watford are still in with a shot of promotion via the playoffs.
Quite what would happen upon promotion is anyone’s guess — this squad is so far off the required level it’s almost amusing — but we got our reset, albeit six months later than advertised. Bilić has the mandate to deliver it.