Ho ho ho and a very happy PLSD to all Watford fans!
That’s Premiership League Survival Day, for the uninitiated, which has come precisely one day earlier than it did last season. For two seasons in a row we’ve never so much as flirted with relegation, and that’s an achievement worth celebrating for little old Watford.
Of course, there are still question marks, not least over whether the Head Coach will still be here in August. For what it’s worth, I think he’s done enough to deserve another season. Injuries (primarily to Pereyra and then Zarate) put paid to his plans to play more incisive attacking football, and integrating some of the younger players into the team next season – Success, Niang if he signs, Doucouré, maybe even Berghuis – might help to make us a more exciting prospect to watch.
But whoever is picking the team, we’ll be there in the Premier League when next season starts, alongside other small, well-run clubs like Bournemouth and Burnley, while supposedly bigger clubs who think they have a divine right to play in the top division continue to flounder a level or two lower down. Forest, Wolves, Birmingham, Villa, Leeds (let’s face it, they’re bound to make a pig’s ear of the playoffs), Cardiff, Blackburn, Derby... The list goes on. We are very lucky to have the Pozzos.
Monday, 17 April 2017
Friday, 14 April 2017
Decruitment drive
Quick quiz question: in what way is Allan Nyom unique this season? (Apart from in his ability to antagonise Watford fans who previously had nothing against him, obviously.)
The answer is that he’s the only player to have been contracted to Watford in the Pozzo era who is part of another Premier League team’s squad for 2016-17. Indeed, if it weren’t for Ashley Young, still clinging on at Manchester United, he’d be the only former Hornet full stop – though of course there are several one-time loanees playing their trade at the top level, including Jack Cork, Hector Bellerin, Ben Foster and Danny Rose.
Over the past couple of years, Watford have got rid of a number of popular players who many of us thought were more than capable of doing a job in the Premier League. It turns out that other Premier League clubs disagreed, and few have even made much of an impression in the Championship. At Derby, Ikechi Anya has only started 11 games this season (out of 41) and Matej Vydra 18, though he is currently on one of his occasional goal-scoring runs. Up at Sheffield Wednesday, Fernando Forestieri is more established, having started 32 games (and the ones he’s missed are partly down to a series of red cards for diving – some things never change). At the same club, Daniel Pudil has started 22 and Almen Abdi just 11.
You get the point; most of our former heroes are now bit-part players a division below Watford’s current status. What that says to me is that the club offloaded them at the right time, when form and fitness were on a downward curve, and they deserve credit for that. In my last post I was critical of their recruitment, but in terms of decruitment (not a word, but it should be), they’ve got it spot on.
In this respect, it’s reminiscent of GT’s golden decade, when it was almost unheard-of for a player to leave Watford and go on to better things. The shining exception was John Barnes, of course, who we simply couldn’t hold on to. But in most cases, we used them up and wore them out, and they were never the same again. My Brentford-supporting friend Stuart still hasn’t forgiven Watford for offloading a knackered Ian Bolton on them in 1983; by the end of that season he was playing for Kingsbury Town. There are plenty of other examples, albeit mostly not so extreme.
So credit where it’s due. As fans, we get terribly sentimental about our favourite players. The club can’t afford to be, though, and much as I would love to still have Anya, Vydra and (above all) Abdi in our squad now, the evidence suggests that they wouldn’t have a lot to contribute.
The answer is that he’s the only player to have been contracted to Watford in the Pozzo era who is part of another Premier League team’s squad for 2016-17. Indeed, if it weren’t for Ashley Young, still clinging on at Manchester United, he’d be the only former Hornet full stop – though of course there are several one-time loanees playing their trade at the top level, including Jack Cork, Hector Bellerin, Ben Foster and Danny Rose.
Over the past couple of years, Watford have got rid of a number of popular players who many of us thought were more than capable of doing a job in the Premier League. It turns out that other Premier League clubs disagreed, and few have even made much of an impression in the Championship. At Derby, Ikechi Anya has only started 11 games this season (out of 41) and Matej Vydra 18, though he is currently on one of his occasional goal-scoring runs. Up at Sheffield Wednesday, Fernando Forestieri is more established, having started 32 games (and the ones he’s missed are partly down to a series of red cards for diving – some things never change). At the same club, Daniel Pudil has started 22 and Almen Abdi just 11.
You get the point; most of our former heroes are now bit-part players a division below Watford’s current status. What that says to me is that the club offloaded them at the right time, when form and fitness were on a downward curve, and they deserve credit for that. In my last post I was critical of their recruitment, but in terms of decruitment (not a word, but it should be), they’ve got it spot on.
In this respect, it’s reminiscent of GT’s golden decade, when it was almost unheard-of for a player to leave Watford and go on to better things. The shining exception was John Barnes, of course, who we simply couldn’t hold on to. But in most cases, we used them up and wore them out, and they were never the same again. My Brentford-supporting friend Stuart still hasn’t forgiven Watford for offloading a knackered Ian Bolton on them in 1983; by the end of that season he was playing for Kingsbury Town. There are plenty of other examples, albeit mostly not so extreme.
So credit where it’s due. As fans, we get terribly sentimental about our favourite players. The club can’t afford to be, though, and much as I would love to still have Anya, Vydra and (above all) Abdi in our squad now, the evidence suggests that they wouldn’t have a lot to contribute.
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