MIND YOUR LANGUAGE
Silva’s warning to players is loud and clear: Mazzarri is gone.. so speak English or else
MARCO SILVA has made an instant impression on Watford’s multilingual melting pot – by demanding that everyone speaks English.
After the language barrier of predecessor Walter Mazzarri confronting the media through an interpreter and relaying instructions via trusted players in training, the new Hornets head coach insisted there will be no more cliques based on foreign tongues.
Watford’s current squad features 20 nationalities speaking 12 different languages, but Silva has brought an end to the full house of Mazzarri’s lingo bingo.
The Portuguese boss, who took over as the ninth gaffer in five years at Vicarage Road earlier this month, said: “Will the players be speaking in English? Yes – the main language is English, I have come here to speak English.
“Normally I talk in front of everyone in English. Sometimes I need to speak to Spanish players a bit in Spanish, but that is not perfect.” Fortified by a good-luck call from the club’s life president Sir Elton John, 40-year-old Silva snubbed Crystal Palace and Southampton to sign a two-year contract.
The average shelf life of a manager in Watford owner Gino Pozzo’s reign has been eight-and-ahalf months – and none of the previous six head coaches have lasted more than a year. But Silva has no qualms about taking on the job. He said: “It’s not important for me to think about that – I don’t spend my days worrying about it.
“I respect the other managers who did a good job here.
“The club decides what they want, and I’m not the right person to talk about that.
“Our target is clear – we need to prove we are a Premier League club, and then the ambition is to do better than the last two years.
“If I didn’t think I could last two years, I would have signed only for one. But in football you need to work day-by-day, and if you count the years on your contract that’s often your first mistake.
“I spoke on the phone with Sir Elton – he’s an amazing person and I hope he will come here for the first match against Liverpool.
“He just said the normal things like ‘good luck’ and ‘you are a fantastic manager’ – I think he says that to everyone!”
Watford skipper Troy Deeney is back in light training following a groin operation last week, but the curtain-raiser against Liverpool on August 12 is likely to come round too soon for him to make the cut.
But the man who arrived at Hull midway through last season with the Tigers needing snookers to stay up, and took their relegation fight to the penultimate game, wants to make Vicarage Road a fortress.
Until Hull’s 2-0 defeat by lame ducks Sunderland, Silva had presided over 41 home league games unbeaten at four different clubs, and he added: “I don’t like to talk about the past, but it was a big issue last season for Hull to take points away.”