On the other hand

… later in the evening I came across a repeat of the first episode of another sitcom, Gavin and Stacey, and watched that. The writers’ world view here is essentially different from that of The Thick of It. Yes, the world is messy and chaotic, but people are essentially good and things will work themselves out for the best over time, for the most part.

Warmed by this alternative way of looking at things, I found myself looking at Watford’s performance in a different light...

So we’re not getting the results at the moment: they’ll come. The foreign players are still new to this division, and to each other, and it’s unrealistic to expect the team to play like a well-oiled machine straight away. Moreover, Zola is intelligent enough to realise when something isn’t working: the fact that his substitutions yesterday involved three experienced Championship hands replacing foreign imports suggests that he understands the limitations of his squad. He’ll find a way to get them firing on all cylinders soon – and when he does, we’ll start moving up the table.

Two ways of looking at the same situation, then. In the cold light of day, on a rainy Sunday morning, I still find myself leaning towards the Mannion view, but I’m open to persuasion otherwise. If Zola started the next match with Doyley, Hall and Deeney in place of Cassetti, Neuton and Forestieri, that would be a start.

Peter Mannion writes

I’m loving the new series of The Thick of It on BBC2 on Saturday evenings. For those who don’t know, it’s a no-punches-pulled satire that starts from the principle that politics is full of self-serving idiots blundering from one disaster to another. At the centre of this series is a lowly government Minister, Peter Mannion, an old-fashioned, well-meaning politician permanently enraged by the chaos that surrounds him.

Later, I found myself appraising Watford’s performance against Bristol City in Mannion’s exasperated tones...

Where do I start? Okay, Neuton is a disaster waiting to happen: whatever the opposite of an effective Championship defender is, he’s it. Cassetti has the speed of an arthritic turtle – every left winger in the division must be ringing the date in the diary when they get the chance to skin him. How he’s keeping Lloydinho out of the team, god only knows. Forestieri is the world champion at turning in a tight space, beating the same man three times and then either (a) giving the ball away, or (b) blasting it 10 feet wide of the goal. Vydra is too lightweight to play up front on his own. And the whole bloody of lot of them spent half the match standing still – where’s the movement, the urgency? Is it because they’re all so unfit that the only way they can make it to 90 minutes without collapsing is to conserve energy by running around less? And is that also why they tend to huddle together in small groups, so they can spend a couple of minutes passing the ball in neat triangles over a small space before losing it? I despair.

Then again…

A brief commercial break

Surprisingly, I seem to have neglected to mention that I’m one of the select band who have contributed to an anthology of new writing about Watford FC, edited by Lionel Birnie and called Tales from the Vicarage. It’s out later this month, but it’s available to pre-order now. You can read full details here, including a list of the contributors and a summary of each chapter.

My piece is more personal than most of the opinionated nonsense I write on this blog, and it was challenging, but fun, to write. (Lionel asked me for around 5,000 words, which is about 4,000 more than the longest piece I’ve ever written about Watford before.) It’ll be the first – and almost certainly the last – time I’ve ever appeared in print alongside an England international, and I’m really looking forward to reading DJ’s and the other contributions. If you’re a Watford fan – and I’d be surprised if you’re not, since you’re reading this – it’s going to be essential reading.

A motley crew

Is that it now? Do we have enough players to get us through the season? Or maybe we should get a few more in on loan, just to be on the safe side.

All right, enough sarcasm. But I can’t be the only Watford fan to find the steady stream of players arriving at Vicarage Road over the past few weeks (so many that the ‘Team’ section of the club website makes no mention of half of them) more dispiriting than exciting. Yes, Vydra, Abdi and Pudil look promising, and have added quality to positions where we needed it. But such a huge influx of new personnel can only be destabilising, surely?

Here are the questions that are uppermost in my mind at the moment:

1) Does Zola have any say in this?

A manager’s priority at the start of a season is to build a coherent, stable team as quickly as possible: it’s hard to do that when your squad is changing on a daily basis. Also, we’re often told that the challenge for managers with large squads is keeping those who aren’t playing regularly happy. I’d have thought that’s a challenge Zola, new to the club as he is, would rather not have to deal with right now.

2) Do we have to play them all?

If I’ve understood the Pozzos’ business model correctly, the point of us taking all these players on loan from Udinese and Granada is to put them in the shop window. That’s not going to happen if the only action they see is the occasional friendly against Wycombe or Stevenage reserves, though, so we should expect to see all the newcomers in first-team action at some stage. How Zola manages that without disrupting the team is anyone’s guess.

3) How do our homegrown players feel about this?

I’ve written before about the dispiriting effect of Sean Dyche’s transfer and selection policy on players like Lee Hodson, Dale Bennett and Ross Jenkins. Now, I would imagine, they must be thoroughly depressed, all chance of a run in the first team extinguished. If I were them, I’d move in the next transfer window, to a club where they’ve got a realistic chance of developing their career. A club like Watford used to be.

4) Why should I care about any of them?

The fact that a player is on loan doesn’t mean that, as a fan, you don’t regard them as one of yours. I still feel quite proprietorial towards the likes of Ben Foster and Tom Cleverley, for example. But when half the squad consists of players who are unlikely to have a second season at the club, you can’t help but wonder why you should get to know them. By the time you’ve worked out who they all are and who plays where, they’ll be gone again.

5) Are there enough lockers at the training ground?

Seriously, it must be chaos at London Colney, like at school when all the foreign exchange kids arrive and none of them knows where they’re supposed to go and what they’re supposed to do. Still, if you’re a translator based in South-West Herts with a good knowledge of a few key languages (Italian, Spanish, French), you must be quids in right now.

One out of three ain’t bad

For all the many uncertainties of professional football, some things never change, and the first three fixtures of this season threw up three of the most reliable of eternal verities where the Hornets are concerned:

1) In the 1st Round of the League Cup, Watford are always drawn at home against a lower-division side who we struggle to beat in a horribly dull game

2) When we play at Selhurst Park, it is always cold and wet and we get tonked

3) We never lose to Ipswich

All right, so some things do change after all (though at least we can rely on the League Cup). I can just about accept winning at Selhurst: Watford have occasionally won there – just not when I’ve been in attendance, and I couldn’t make it on Saturday, so I can practically take credit for the late winner.

But losing to Ipswich is against the natural order of things. I really thought we were going to get away with it last night, having been outplayed for most of the match – as if our status as Ipwich’s bogey team would somehow keep the ball out of our net. Still, if the Pozzos and Zola are going to revolutionise our club, they might as well start by destroying everything we know for sure. Yay.

Dear Mr Zola

Having suggested what I’d like to see Watford’s new owners do, I’ve been thinking about how Gianfranco Zola might best keep me happy (which will, obviously, be one of his priorities). Here are five points he might like to ponder:

1) Do your homework
No, not on the opposition – on Watford FC, its history and traditions. Reading Oliver Phillips’ centenary history of the club would be a good start, and Lionel Birnie’s books paint a good picture of the high points of the modern era. I don’t expect the manager to be able to answer trivia questions on Watford, but equally, I’d like to think his knowledge extends beyond the reductive ‘Elton John’s money + long-ball game = success in the 80s’ view of the club.

2) Give (our) youth a chance
This ought to be a no-brainer, given the Pozzos’ stated business model, but the huge influx of exotically named loanees from our new ‘sister clubs’ is a little concerning, and rather reminiscent of Sean Dyche’s scatter-gun approach to squad building. The reinstatement of the seven subs rule ought to help, but I hope that our Academy graduates are given a proper chance to show what they can do this season – not just the occasional five-minute cameo.

3) Find a decent penalty-taker
This is one way in which Zola could distinguish himself from every one of his predecessors over the past decade or more. Watford must have one of the poorest penalty conversion rates in the league, to the point where I barely bother celebrating any more when we’re awarded one, knowing that it will be wasted. It shouldn’t be that difficult: identify a couple of players who are good at taking penalties and make sure they practice at every training session, until they can score with their eyes shut.

4) Keep us up
I suppose that should have been the first point, really, as it’s the minimum requirement for any Watford manager. The last few have done a good job in this regard, probably because (despite public pronouncements to the contrary) this was their main focus for the season. Now talk has shifted to the possibility of moving up the league rather than down it, and though there’s no immediate reason to worry, plenty of clubs in this division have found that ambition can be a prelude to relegation.

5) Don’t drop Doyley
Really, don’t even think about it. Most Watford managers over the past 10 years have dropped Lloyd at some point, only to see the error of their ways. So what if he’s not a marauding wing-back? He’s the best defender at the club, and one of the best in the division, and we’re a better team with him than without.

The proof of the pudding

Following on from my previous post, I’ve been thinking about what it will take for me to be reassured that Watford is in safe hands after the latest takeover. These, for me, are the five key areas:

1) The ground

The Pozzos’ press release acknowledged the need to improve the ground, and I would expect that to be a priority, because at the moment it’s an embarrassment. Bassini kept saying that work to complete the new media centre/changing rooms complex between the Rookery and Rous stands was imminent: I would now expect work to start before Christmas and for it to be finished in time for next season.

2) The traditions

The Pozzos say they understand and respect Watford’s heritage and traditions. If the players don’t run out to ‘Z Cars’ before the first home game of the season, that statement will be shown to be so much hot air. 

3) The fans

If there’s one thing Bassini’s brief spell in charge proved, it’s the importance of communication. Even though LB himself never turned up at a Fans’ Forum, others from the club did, to positive effect. If the Pozzos want to gain the trust of the fans, they should organise a couple of Fans’ Forums fairly early on, and make sure that key personnel attend.

4) The players

Zola started work, and the players returned after their summer break, just yesterday. I’d like to think that the new manager wants to spend some time assessing the players he’s inherited before rushing into the transfer and loan markets. We saw last season how disruptive it can be when you sign practically an entire team’s worth of new players at the start of the season. I’m not saying the current squad can’t be improved - I just want to see evidence of some thinking before the dressing room starts filling up with random foreigners.

5) The Watford Way

There’s been much discussion of what this phrase means on the WML over the past few days, and I’m no more certain of the definition than anyone else. If in doubt, though, I think the phrase “Would Graham Taylor have done that?” pretty much covers it. I haven’t got a recommendation for our new owners here: it’s more a case that we’ll know if they do something that is counter to the Watford Way.

Here we go again

I never felt particularly strongly about Lawrence Bassini. For all that many Watford fans tended to regard him as the devil incarnate, I was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt until presented with factual evidence to persuade me otherwise. Maybe the full story will emerge in time and those of us who tolerated Bassini will be exposed as naive fools, as some on the WML insist.

Personally, I was upset that he forced me to sell my Watford shares – even if they were almost worthless by that point – and suspicious of the mystery surrounding his background and the source of his funds, but encouraged by the steady progress the club made during his tenure, both on and off the pitch. I suspect many Watford fans feel the same.

As for the Pozzos, there is no mystery about the source of their funds, which is a big plus point. Equally encouraging is the general perception (presumably being encouraged by the Italians themselves) that they’re not going to throw money at Watford in an attempt to gain instant promotion to the Premiership. That approach rarely works, as we’ve seen all too often.

Set against that is the worry that the new regime will change too much, too soon, and throw the baby out with the bathwater. The mooted replacement of Sean Dyche with Gianfranco Zola is not a good sign, and the scenario that sees Watford effectively becoming a nursery club for Udinese, with a team packed with cheap European and Latin American imports, is not an appealing one.

Then again... Since I started following Watford in 1970, the club has been owned (whatever that word means in a football context) by Jack Bonsor, Elton John, Jack Petchey, Rumi Verjee, Graham Simpson, the Russos, Lawrence Bassini and now the Pozzos. (That’s from memory – I may have missed one or two.) As with managers, it’s noticeable that the turnover of owners has become more rapid over the years.

Curiously, the only one on that list the fans actively protested against was Bonsor. Maybe that’s because we’ve become resigned to the fact that we don’t actually have much say in the matter (particularly now that the club is once again privately owned), but also because we know that if we don’t like this owner, another one will be along soon.

If the Pozzos are still in charge in 10 years’ time, I’ll be surprised (indeed, judging by recent history, they’ll be lucky to last five).  If they are, that will presumably mean that they’ve been successful. If not, Watford will still be around in some form – football clubs are hard things to kill off, as the examples of Wimbledon, Aldershot, Newport, Accrington and others show. That’s because we, the fans, are the club, when it comes down to it. We may not have a bit of paper to say that we’re the legal owners, but that doesn’t stop it being ours.

The local policeman’s lament

I live in Fulham, half a mile or so from Stamford Bridge. So, as you can imagine, things have been fairly lively around here for the last couple of days.

Personally, I wasn’t too bothered about the victory parade yesterday. We’d been warned it was going to happen if Chelsea won the Champions League, and I made sure that I didn’t need to travel anywhere by car. As it happened, thanks to all the road closures (which lasted from early in the morning until the evening), it was blessedly peaceful around Sands End – though it’s true that the helicopters monitoring and filming the parade itself in the afternoon did disturb that peace somewhat.

The warning about the parade came from my local neighbourhood police liaison officer. I feel quite sorry for the poor man, as the police clearly took the brunt of the blame from locals who weren’t as relaxed as I was about the disruption to their weekend. In an email sent this morning, he says:

“As I stated previously the road closures were authorised by the council after an application by Chelsea FC, not the police. The police's job on the day is to prevent crime, disorder and also to assist in the safety of all those present.”

It’s the bit that comes next that caught my attention, though:

“I am not anti celebration, and if it was my team that had won I would also have wanted to see a parade, very unlikely however as I support Crystal Palace and we don't have a billionaire owner.”

After a few more paragraphs lamenting the fact that the police get it in the neck for any road closures that inconvenience the public, and urging his readers to take their grievances up with the council, gas board and so on, he signs off with a heartfelt plea:

“Finally, if anyone knows of a billionaire who is looking to buy a football club, please let me know, as I’m sure that I'll be able to put them in touch with the current owners of Crystal Palace.”

I suspect all of us who are occasionally confronted with the success of bigger, richer clubs know how he feels.

You’ll be back again next year

In some ways, I feel sorry for the Middlesbrough fans who made the journey to Vicarage Road yesterday. It’s a hell of a long way to come to see your team fall at the final hurdle, even if, as it turned out, the result was ultimately irrelevant. And they probably didn’t expect the last game of the season to be played on a pitch like a ploughed field, in strong winds and driving rain.

They might also reasonably have expected their opponents to have one eye on the beach, with a mid-table position already secured and nothing much to play for. But Watford’s performance yesterday was their season in microcosm. Outplayed for most of the match, they showed strength, tenacity and intelligence, and took their chances when they came. They also benefited from some outstanding individual performances, especially from Scott Loach, Jonathan Hogg (before his injury) and Troy Deeney.

Aidy Mariappa may have won the Player of the Season award (and deservedly so), but for me, it’s Deeney who best represents this Watford team; young, raw, energetic, occasionally erratic but always willing to get up and try again. In a game where he mostly fed off scraps, he still managed to create one goal and score another, and no one deserved it more.

I dare say Troy will still be with us next season (like Lloyd Doyley, he strikes me as one of those players who has just enough flaws to make him an unappealing prospect for other clubs), but I wonder how many of those in yesterday’s squad will be off in the summer. There seems to be a general assumption that Mariappa already has his bags packed for a Premiership club, and Martin Taylor is out of contract and may be looking for one last payday. That would leave us light on centre-backs, unless David Mirfin makes a surprise return from exile in Scunthorpe.

The goalkeeping situation is also murky. I suspect we’d like to offer Tomasz Kuszczak a contract, but can’t afford him. Rene Gilmartin is out of contract soon and might be well advised to look elsewhere. That would leave Loach, Bond and Bonham, and I wouldn’t be too unhappy about that.

I do worry about some of our younger players, though. If I were Ross Jenkins, Matt Whichelow, Lee Hodson or Dale Bennett, I suspect I’d be wondering how much longer I’ve got to wait to become a first-team regular. Bennett may get his chance next season if Mariappa and Taylor leave, but the others are all stuck in a queue. Hodson (who looked distinctly downhearted during the squad’s lap of honour yesterday) has to wait for Lloyd Doyley to cease to be Mr Reliable, and that could be another two or three seasons yet. Whichelow (who also looked cheesed off) has at least fought his way back into the squad, but has been overtaken by Sean Murray. And Jenkins (who appears to have been sidelined for injury for much of this season) has to hope that John Eustace runs out of steam, which he’s showing no sign of doing yet. I suspect at least two of those four will move down a division or two this summer in search of regular football.

But, to return to the title of this post, Boro will be back at the Vic again next year, and so will I. I’m already looking forward to seeing how this raw but plucky squad will manage to defy the odds once again.