Watford’s summer of discontent is (almost) over: a case for the optimists
It seems a lifetime ago that Rob Edwards was introduced to Watford fans at Vicarage Road during the final home game of a wretched season that ended in a 5–1 defeat by Leicester City.
In fact, only 78 days have passed. Yet after the most fractious, ill-tempered, and divisive pre-season in recent memory, no one will be more glad than Edwards to see his team put the nonsense behind them and get down to business. Unfortunately, owing to Watford’s new-found status as big dogs of the division, he will have to wait until Monday for the curtain-raiser at home to Sheffield United.
That Leicester game felt like the dawn of a new era. Through Adam Leventhal’s reporting on The Athletic, we’d been promised a cultural reset. A young, homegrown manager who would be given time to mould the team in his own image. No more short-term stop-gaps or wizened has-beens like Roy Hodgson or Claudio Ranieri. This was Pozzo’s Watford 2.0.
Yet the more things change, the more they stay the same. June 10 was the first tentpole moment for the summer of discontent — no one had arrived and other Championship clubs were moving ahead of the Hornets. Cardiff City had already been busy and Bristol City had pinched Kane Wilson who, by dint of serving under Edwards at Forest Green Rovers, was presumed WD18 bound. In fact, I have it on very good authority that we were never in for him. Given Edwards spent a year working with Wilson, I’ll take his judgement on the player’s suitability over anyone else’s.
But signings had to arrive, particularly as the exit door span out of control. The exodus was needed and Dan Gosling’s laudably frank and honest assessment of last season’s omnishambles in the Watford Observer confirmed everything we thought we knew from pressing our noses up against the glass. (Sidenote: it’s been great as a former WO sports reporter to see the paper become relevant again this summer — kudos to Andrew French and Newsquest for retaining him.)
Ismaïla Sarr and Emmanuel Dennis were two expected to leave and yet, three days before the season kicks off, they’re still here. That has caused consternation: why use them if we know they’re going? The fact they’re still here suggests there is some belief they’ll remain a while longer. It’s easier to see Dennis going, given he cost just £3million and contributed to 16 goals last season. But Sarr, off the back of a season ruined by injury, needs to fetch a fee that will at least get Watford off the hook for the remaining payments to Rennes and hopefully breakeven on the £28.8million deal. That means a considerably higher fee.
Furthermore, there are seven league games before the window shuts on September 1. No one can convince me Watford have a worse chance of picking up points with Dennis and Sarr available to Edwards — even if they subsequently move on — than if they are forced to sit at home and kick their heels.
Yet with Premier League teams kicking off a week later than those in the second tier, all is not lost. If we are competing for young players or top-flight cast-offs, those decisions tend to be made later in the summer and having to wait is an unavoidable consequence. Only this week it’s been reported that Watford want to take Ethan Laird on loan from Manchester United after impressing in pre-season. With tour commitments in Thailand, Australia and Norway, not to mention a new coach to impress, Laird has been retained.
Having players in the building, learning Edwards’ system, roles and patterns of play from the first day of pre-season would have been beneficial. But it’s not as binary as that. In 2005/06, Watford got new players in early: Júnior, Sietes, Martin Devaney and Adam Griffiths. How much of a role did they play in the subsequent promotion? Answers on a postcard, please. Whereas Malky Mackay, Clarke Carlisle, Darius Henderson and Matthew Spring all arrived much later and made huge contributions. Again, there are a million shades of grey between black and white — and that’s not to say late signings equal promotion, either. There are myriad factors that contribute to a promotion-winning team. I doubt the guidebook to getting out of the Championship advises prospective promotion winners to appoint four coaches before Christmas but it worked for Watford in 2014/15.
Others who weren’t expected to depart, have. Here, we’re chiefly talking about Cucho Hernández, Kiko Femenía, Philip Zinckernagel and Tiago Çukur — a player I quite simply can’t get het up about losing, given I’ve never seen him kick a football. It’s money for old rope and if it means holding onto someone genuinely useful at first-team level, it can’t be a bad thing.
I apply a similar rationale to Zinckernagel’s switch to Olympiacos. This feels like a missed opportunity, admittedly. He would have every reason to feel miffed at his treatment by Watford. Signed as a right-winger, he was utilised almost exclusively in central midfield by Xisco Muñoz before being loaned to Nottingham Forest. He did well on the banks of the River Trent but not well enough to earn a permanent move — perhaps less surprising given they’ve splurged a reported £200k-a-week on Jesse Lingard.
Again, picking up a couple of million for a player who hasn’t been seen in a Watford shirt in a year isn’t bad business. Sure, I think we’d all like to have seen more of someone who arrived to plentiful fanfare. But I’m not going to sit here and pretend I watched Bodø/Glimt and can therefore claim with any authority we’ve missed a trick. I’ve always felt that with the rapid churn rate under Pozzo, if you leave on loan you’re as good as gone anyway. You can virtually guarantee the manager who you signed under will have been sacked and a raft of new signings will have been made too.
Cucho was the one that stuck in the craw though. He was someone who we’d only seen the very beginning of and, who worked his socks off and appeared to care, snatched away to play in Major League Soccer. It’d be easier to swallow if he’d stayed in the Premier League or returned to LaLiga. But seeing him move to what, while rapidly improving, is still an inferior league was a blow. Conversely, the reported $10million transfer fee for someone who never nailed down a starting role or position and only scored a handful of (often spectacular) goals, offered some consolation.
It was this deal that saw the first communication from much-maligned sporting director Cristiano Giaretta who explained Cucho wanted to leave and the club needed to reduce the number of non-homegrown players to comply with EFL rules. If by now you aren’t au fait with the so-called ‘Rule of 11’, where have you been?! It states EFL teams cannot name more than 11 non-homegrown (find the definition for yourself, it’s not light reading) players in a matchday squad. Edwards, understandably, doesn’t want to be picking players based on homegrown status. Talent, form, and suitability are the criteria and therefore a trimming down was necessary. If Cucho wanted to leave, that makes three good reasons: status, desire, and revenue.
You don’t have to accept everything that comes out of the club without question. A level of inquisition is healthy. After two relegations and countless missteps in the last three years, Watford should expect scrutiny from supporters. But the lines of communication have been opened and that is something that should be applauded. Adding context to these departures — as was also the case with Femenía — reduces the need for supporters to fill in the blanks with often spurious and unfounded claims.
The fact the first two signings, Vakoun Bayo and Rey Manaj, were both non-homegrown — and one of those (Bayo) was a Mogi Bayat client too — didn’t go down well. But assuming that the replacement for Cucho had to be homegrown is an oversimplification. It is not a case of one out, one in. Watford can trade one off against the other over the course of the transfer window. As long as the net result is we’ve reduced the number of non-homegrown players by the time the registration window shuts, it’s job done.
Clearly, we need more signings. This is where my positivity starts to dry up. It’s hard to escape the feeling Watford have not given Edwards the tools to do the job. There seems to be a very real possibility that Hassane Kamara, a left-footed left-back will begin the season as our first-choice right-wing-back. We have no left-footed central defenders. Winger Ken Sema will be the left-wing-back and the midfield remains as one-dimensional as ever — particularly with Imran Louza sidelined for six to eight weeks.
Edwards cannot be expected to work miracles and there are a lot of unknowns. If Dennis and Sarr stay, Watford have arguably the two best forwards in the Championship. If they don’t, there is a lot of pressure on Bayo, Manaj and João Pedro — who may yet end up playing at No10 — to score the goals to win promotion.
Centre-back remains a concern too. If a ball-playing defender is a non-negotiable of Edwards’ system, Watford lack one. Though much maligned, Craig Cathcart, William Troost-Ekong, and Christian Kabasele are all serviceable Championship defenders. Francisco Sierralta is better still. None of them are comfortably playing out from the back and none are natural left-siders either.
In midfield, there are plenty of workhorses but, as with last season, any creativity responsibility lies with Louza. New-boy Yaser Asprilla will help but he is only 18 and has recently arrived from Colombia. Domingos Quina is still kicking around and it feels like now-or-never for someone who struggled to make a meaningful contribution when we were last in the Championship two years ago.
Goalkeeper had seemed to be one of the few settled positions. But Maduka Okoye has — for now at least — lost out to Daniel Bachmann in the battle to be No1. There has been some frustration here too and while it’s not a good look from a recruitment point of view to sign a goalkeeper for £5-6million only to bench him, Okoye’s price tag is not relevant in whether he plays or not. It is Edwards’ call and if it were a financial decision, the same fans complaining now would be annoyed that Pozzo/Duxbury/Giarretta/insert scapegoat here had meddled in football matters.
There has been some revisionism regards Bachmann over the last year based — in my opinion at least — on a few stories about him wanting to leave if he was to be the back-up. It wasn’t that long ago we were all lauding his performances in the Championship and far superior distribution to Ben Foster. But the pressure is on: as soon as he makes an error, there will be calls for Okoye to start because he is the shiny, new, expensive toy. The reality is his distribution isn’t as good as Bachmann’s and — from what I’ve seen —they share similar weaknesses. Chiefly command of their area and coming for crosses.
In all, it‘s hard to know quite what to make of Watford ahead of the big kick-off. There is some good: Edwards’ appointment, a younger, fresher squad, and better communication. There is some bad, too: a lack of signings in key areas, uncertainty around the team’s stars, and a division among supporters who should be united ahead of the new season.
But it will all dampen down on August 1 if Watford start with a win. Over to you, Rob.