VLAD, ALL OVER
Munoz next up for Watford after dour play costs Ivic job
THE club who go through managers like Zsa Zsa Gabor went through husbands is at it again.
Watford handed scowling Vladimir Ivic his cards after Saturday’s 2- 0 defeat at Huddersfield, where he effectively wrote his own P45.
Within hours of the axe falling Dinamo Tbilisi’s Spanish coach Xisco Munoz was appointed as Ivic’s successor.
Munoz had better leave the engine running if he is not threatening automatic promotion soon. At face value, a 13th managerial change in eight- anda- half years at Vicarage Road looks premature and harsh.
The Hornets, seeking an instant return to the Premier League, are fifth in the Championship and the four- point gap to the automatic promotion places is hardly insurmountable with 26 games left.
But as the usual suspects in the knee- jerk tendency rushed to condemn Watford’s haste, Hornets fans – always the best barometer – were not sorry to see the back of the unsmiling Serbian.
The tipping point was dropping club captain Troy Deeney for the 2- 0 defeat by the Terriers after he had scored in three consecutive games. The striker has never liked being ‘ rested’ and could not hide his distaste for needless tinkering.
When he was left to stew on the bench for “disciplinary reasons” – namely speaking out of turn – something had to give. As Deeney is the lone survivor of 12 previous managers or head coaches, it i was always l going i to b be I Ivic i who h was the h man sacrificed.
Neutral sympathy for Watford will be in short supply after the breathless turnover of personnel in the cockpit, and the sacking of Nigel Pearson in July – with just two games left in the Premier League relegation dogfight – will forever be a stain on owner Gino Pozzo’s judgment.
But in most cases, when Pozzo has pulled the trigger in the past, the fans have agreed with him.
The football Ivic served up was dour, sideways, uninspiring. Even when the 43- year- old won the manager of the month award for November, he looked uncomfortable with the trophy.
And four goals in 10 away games is a dismal return for a club with pretensions of a boomerang return to the top flight.
He was undoubtedly handicapped by too many long- term injuries and, more recently, positive Covid- 19 tests. When winger Ken Sema was unavailable, he was forced to pick a team in which the only left- footed player was goalkeeper Ben Foster.
And if player power was a factor in Ivic’s demise, the buck does not stop with Deeney alone. Andre Gray broke lockdown rules twice in five months, while £ 35million- record signing Ismaila Sarr’s form has been fitful. But above all, the reign was joyless.