Few tears will be shed for Watford after relegation
Who will shed a tear for Watford? Not many people across the game. Their relegation from the Premier League after the 3-2 defeat by Arsenal at the Emirates caused little consternation outside Hertfordshire.
There is even less sympathy for Gino Pozzo. The owner sacked Nigel Pearson with two games left in the season. It seemed a perverse decision. Watford were seven points away from safety when Pearson took over from Quique Sanchez Flores in December. The Pozzo family have shown a disdainful disregard for managers since they arrived at Vicarage Road eight years ago.
One of their first decisions was to part company with Sean Dyche and replace him with Gianfranco Zola. So
far the Pozzos have made 10 managerial changes and only one of Zola’s successors would come within 15 games of matching the Italian’s 66-game tenure.
If Pearson’s record had been extrapolated over the whole campaign, Watford would have broken the 40point mark and finished with plenty of breathing space in the battle against the drop. The team have not played well since the Premier League’s restart and the last two games were against Manchester City and Arsenal but Pearson had already seen his side beat Liverpool this season.
Managers frequently run out of impetus. Players lose belief in their methods and tactics, and things can get stale quickly. If this happens, the received logic is that it is cheaper and less disruptive to change the manager rather than make sweeping changes to the squad. At Watford the man picking the team does not get time for his schtick to grow old: lasting a full season qualifies a boss for a long-service award.
The Pozzos pride themselves on being ruthless and clever. The family owns Udinese in Italy and also controlled Granada in Spain until four years ago. Giampaolo Pozzo, the patriarch, was once embroiled in a match-fixing scandal in Serie A. They do things differently to most owners. The turnover of players at Watford during their time in charge has been remarkable. The squad has been remade on almost an annual basis, although the failure to strengthen last summer was surprising. Players have been shunted between family-owned clubs. The Pozzos seemed to think they had found a way to beat the system. Their approach eschews stability.
Watford’s promotion to the Premier League five years ago and their subsequent stay in the top flight seemed to prove their technique was working. It could not last. The constant instability was always going to lead to diminishing returns. There are very few angles left to find in football. The Pozzos thought they had discovered one. They have been found out.
Fans at Vicarage Road have largely given the owners the benefit of the doubt. It is easy to lay the flaws of a team at the feet of a manager. Sanchez Flores, Marco Silva, Javi Gracia and even Pearson produced sides that were frequently incoherent and at times lacked an identity. Recruitment has been almost as big a problem for Watford as management. It has been hard to discern a clear policy when it comes to signing players. Given the shortness of their tenure, most of the managers had little influence on which players were brought to the club.
One of the reasons for sacking a manager is that the new man will lift morale in the dressing room and improve results. If this happens too often the effect is dulled. Players become desensitised to change.
Gracia wanted to reshape the squad last summer but it turned into one of the quietest transfer windows of the Pozzo era. There will be significant changes this year. Heurelho Gomes, Adrian Mariappa and Jose Holebas are out of contract. Troy Deeney has only one year left to run on his deal. The captain may have played his last game for the Hornets.
The club might decide to cash in on record signing Ismaila Sarr, and Etienne Capoue, Abdoulaye Doucoure and Gerard Deulofeu will attract interest. The academy has an excellent reputation and there is plenty of promise in the youth system.
Joao Pedro and Ignacio Pussetto signed in January and both forwards may be better suited to the Championship than the top flight. Craig Dawson and Danny Welbeck have two years left on their contracts and may well stick around. Domingos Quina and Tom Dele-Bashiru have good pedigree and the potential to improve.
The main thing that needs to change, though, is the recognition that Watford have been doing things the wrong way and it has caught up with them. Bournemouth are an example of a club that has valued stability too much and paid the price but Watford need a season or two when the managerial revolving door stays locked. There are no clever shortcuts, no matter what the Pozzos think. The only tears for Watford come
from those who are crying with laughter at the thought that the owners believed their methods were going to work in the long term.