Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
WATFORD... THE REALLY IMPOSSIBLE JOB
Leicester miracle-worker Ranieri on brink of Vicarage Road post... but for how long?
CLAUDIO RANIERI will go from the magician who procured a Premier League title miracle to football’s unsafest seat if he becomes Watford’s sixth manager in just two years.
If the conductor of Leicester’s fairytale in 2016 could hear the peal of distant chimes ringing dilly-ding, dilly-dong last night, they were probably the alarm bells which come with the manager’s job at Vicarage Road.
Ranieri, 69, is understood to be in advanced talks about taking over from Xisco Munoz after the Spaniard’s brutal sacking just seven games into his maiden voyage in the top flight.
Xisco’s fate extends the cast to 13 bosses since 2012 under owner Gino Pozzo’s regime at Watford.
Here we go again at the club where the chamber is never empty of bullets?
Yes – and Sean Dyche, Gianfranco Zola, Beppe Sannino, Oscar Garcia, Billy Mckinlay, Slavisa Jokanovic, Quique Sanchez Flores, Walter Mazzarri, Marco Silva, Javi Gracia, Nigel Pearson and Vladmir Ivic were all ushered through the exit before Munoz to prove it.
Of those, Mckinlay’s reign was the shortest at two games. Garcia left on health grounds and Zola jumped before he was pushed. Jokanovic could not agree terms to extend his nine-month contract after winning promotion.
But significantly, while social-media ‘experts’ recycled tired jokes about revolving doors, there were rarely protests among the fans about any of the departures. Pozzo’s hire-and-fire model works. In the last eight seasons, the Hornets have won promotion twice, spent six seasons in the top flight, and reached an FA Cup final.
But after Saturday’s 1-0 defeat at Leeds, former England goalkeeper Ben Foster lifted the lid on Watford’s threadbare performances.
The Hornets were denied an undeserved point at Elland Road when referee Simon Hooper detected a non-existent foul.
But Foster admitted: “If we had equalised, it would have papered over the cracks. We’re a better team than what we are showing right now.”
Pozzo (above) and executive chairman Scott Duxbury decided to act with Watford’s next eight games suggesting they are heading for the bottom three without an urgent reboot.
A class act to the end, former Dinamo Tbilisi boss Xisco issued a classy farewell statement within hours of the axe falling.
In his open letter to Watford fans, he said: “It’s been a wonderful journey and it concluded in a way that I neither expected nor wished for.
“My thanks to the players who put blind faith in me and my staff from the first moment so we could achieve the dream of promotion to the Premier League. I’ve got nothing but words of gratitude for the club that gave me the opportunity to start my first adventure in this exciting country.”
Xisco’s sticky end doesn’t remove his place in the club’s history as one of only four men – Graham Taylor (twice), Aidy Boothroyd and Jokanovic are the others – who led Watford into the top flight.
HORNETS’ SURVIVAL BATTLE