We brought Flores back due to nostalgia & got beaten 8-0 at City – just like Jose’s return to Chelsea, it doesn’t work

TROY DEENEY says Watford “wasted 10 games through nostalgia” in their relegation fight by bringing back Quique Sanchez Flores for an encore.

The Hornets had climbed out of the drop zone, by a single goal, after a remarkable revival under Nigel Pearson when the music stopped in March.

Talisman Deeney admitted Watford were “dead and buried, done” before Pearson rode to the rescue in December after Sanchez Flores could manage just one win in his short-lived second coming as head coach.

And before Sanchez Flores’ surprise curtain call, the Hornets captain conceded Javi Gracia – the man who led them to the FA Cup final 12 months ago – had become too “comfortable” in his selection.

Watford got wiped out 6-0 at Wembley by Manchester City, and when Gracia lost the three opening games of this season in the hangover, he was toast.

Deeney, who will rejoin training this week after sitting out the first phase of Project Restart because of “unanswered questions” about the risks of coronavirus, said: “We got crumbled, but you have to learn from your worst moments.

“I was clapping the Man City players sincerely when I was stood on the pitch, but was thinking, ‘You have embarrassed me, I’m going to come back from this stronger’. But I think Javi got very comfortable with the team and that breeds complacency. “People don’t feel they need to train as hard. It didn’t feel right, it didn’t feel like a Watford team.” Sanchez Flores, who had not left Vicarage Road on the best of terms four years ago, was a shock appointment as Gracia’s replacement. The Hornets fought back from 2-0 down to draw with Arsenal in his first game back, but were humiliated 8-0 at City a week later in a defensive apocalypse worse than anything Gracia had presided over. Deeney (with Pearson, above) told the From The Rookery End podcast: “If we had beaten Arsenal, that could have kick-started things for us, but it felt like we wasted 10 games through nostalgia.

“It was like, ‘It happened for us under Quique last time, let’s bring him back’ and there were games where it was nearly there.

“But the reason we got rid of him was like Jose Mourinho going back to Chelsea – it was never like the first time. It’s never really the same because people grow and people change.

“To lose a game 8-0... again, it was embarrassing. I was getting hammered for it and I wasn’t even playing.

“I got home from my first session (after a knee op), jumped on the bike, turned on Soccer Saturday, after 10 minutes we were 3-0 down and it’s like, ‘What’s going on here?’ It’s that humbling feeling.”