Why Vladimir Ivić is in trouble…even if he deserves patience
The role of Watford manager used to be sacred.
I am 28. I was reared on Ray Lewington — I didn’t like football until about 2002, I was an odd child, it’s a long story. So when Ray Lew was unceremoniously dumped at the first sign of trouble in the spring of 2005, it felt like a significant day. I can clearly recall one of my best friends ringing my parents’ landline and we chewed the fat. After all, the club’s former reserve team boss was all I’d known.
Since then, Aidy Boothroyd, Brendan Rodgers, Malky Mackay, Sean Dyche, Gianfranco Zola, Beppe Sannino, Óscar Garcia, Billy McKinlay, Slaviša Jokanović, Quique Sánchez Flores (twice), Walter Mazzarri, Marco Silva, Javi Gracia, Nigel Pearson, Hayden Mullins (twice as the interim head coach) and Vladimir Ivić have all taken charge.
With each change, I find myself less invested in the man patrolling the Vicarage Road dugout. It is inevitable they will be sacked if they don’t go onto better things first — mind you, it’s been some time since a Watford head coach or manager left of their own volition.
The role has been reduced in significance since the Pozzo takeover of 2012. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. There’s some logic in avoiding putting all your eggs in one notoriously fragile basket. The head coach at Watford coaches the first team. They do not do much else.
Current incumbent Ivić would have been all too aware of all of this when he accepted the job in the summer. His appointment was met with optimism. His steely glare is not dissimilar to that of much-heralded and popular countryman Jokanović. This was a head coach who meant business. He had a proven track record of success. He knew how to build winning teams and had a clear identity for those sides.
Thirteen games into Watford’s Championship adventure, it already feels like Ivić is on thin ice. The Hornets’ many detractors — particularly in the media — would hilariously point out Ivić was already on thin ice when he was appointed. I’m looking at you, Gary Lineker.
But as I’ve reasoned before, Watford don’t sack head coaches irrationally. Except for Pearson. We still don’t know what he did wrong but, by the time it happened, it wasn’t a huge surprise so on some subconscious level even that decision had to have a kernel of sense at its core.
So, Ivić.
He’s almost certainly under pressure. Watford are sixth, have yet to lose at home and boast the joint-third best defensive record in the Championship. Objectively, that sounds good. They also, according to Andre Gray among others, have the best squad in the division. Yet they aren’t playing like the league’s standard-bearers. Positions at this stage aren’t the be-all and end-all. Virtually no-one leads the Championship for 46 games before cantering into the Premier League; being in the peloton is fine at this stage.
What isn’t fine is the level of performance. That’s why Ivić will be under pressure. He has a group which somehow still includes Ismaïla Sarr, Will Hughes, Étienne Capoue and Kiko Femenía. Even if the squad list published before the season kicked off has been butchered, there are players still at Vicarage Road few would dare to dream of remaining before the transfer window shut.
But Ivić hasn’t had everything his own way.
The will-they-won’t-they sagas surrounding that quintet were not ideal. Nor were the long goodbyes of Abdoulaye Doucouré, Gerard Deulofeu, Roberto Pereyra, Danny Welbeck, Craig Dawson or Daryl Janmaat. There were hopes Pervis Estúpiñan and Luis Suárez would be involved — both were sold to LaLiga.
The truncated pre-season meant just 22 days between taking charge, with only one member of coaching staff alongside him — and the opening-night win over Middlesbrough. An apparent lack of warm-up fixtures and injuries to Andre Gray, Adam Masina, Deeney and Hughes made for an uncomfortable bedding in period.
Regardless, this team is performing worse than the sum of its parts suggests it should. Wednesday’s snooze-fest at Bristol City was another diabolical away performance to go with Queens Park Rangers, Barnsley, Wycombe Wanderers, Reading and Sheffield Wednesday. If the ‘new normal’ is emboldened teams winning on the road because of the lack of fans, Watford clearly haven’t got the memo.
Pozzo will be factoring all this into his thinking. He is a smart man and an even smarter owner. Decisions are cold, calculated and holistic. Beppe Sannino was dispensed with (he resigned, but he jumped before he was pushed) after a rousing 4–2 win over Huddersfield Town which sent Watford second. But the fact results were good in spite of the Italian rather than because of him was his undoing. The squad were mutinous and the madcap coach was put out of his misery.
There’s no suggestion Watford’s current squad feel the same way about Ivić. But having protected his players with platitudes and straight-bat replies, the Serbian let his guard down following Saturday’s 1–1 draw at Loftus Road.
“This is not the way I want my team to play the game; without energy, without passion, from the beginning,” he said. It could have been Jokanović speaking.
“This must be better because when we change the system the players need to do maximum to make the team better. I don’t just speak for the two subs, but generally for the team. In the second half, we were not the team who wanted to win more.”
It was a damning verdict and not the sort of angle the naturally sympathetic club website would normally hang its post-match reaction on. But there is an expectation this season — and this was indicative of that. Few teams bounce straight back after promotion. When Watford were relegated in 2007 it took until 2015 to sample the sweet nectar of the Premier League once more. When they bombed out the top-flight in 2000, it was another six years before salvation was achieved.
This time it has to be different. The financial reality of a shock relegation after five seasons dining at the top table of English, coupled with the loss of income from COVID-19, makes it imperative.
If Pozzo has any doubts about Ivić’s ability to deliver that, he won’t hesitate to act.