A question of philosophy

With no Watford games to look forward to for a couple more weeks, there’s an opportunity to think more philosophically about the season so far. And if there’s one thing a philosopher loves, it’s a thought experiment, so try this one:

The day before a Premier League season starts, a genie appears and grants you the power to determine how Watford will fare. The catch is that there are only two options:

A: Watford will stay up, but they won’t win a single home game

B: Watford will be unbeaten at home, but they will be relegated

Now if you’re reading this, you’re almost certainly a Watford supporter, so obviously you’d choose A, right? Supporting a club means wanting the best for them at all times, and staying in the Premier League is the best thing for Watford; it means more money to spend on buying better players and to invest in the stadium, the training ground, youth development and community schemes. And it means we get to see some of the best players in the world at Vicarage Road for another season. It’s a no-brainer.

But the thing is, most of us don’t think like that. Human beings are inherently selfish, and what we want from our football-watching experience is the elation of seeing our team scoring goals, the shared experience of cheering on a winning side and the satisfaction of leaving the ground with three points in the bag. I strongly suspect the only people who would realistically choose option A are that dedicated band of fans who go to every away game, and who would reap those benefits anyway.

I’ve been thinking about this, obviously, because of the contrast in Watford’s recent home and away form:

Last five home games: W 0 D 0 L 5, GF 3, GA 13

Last five away games: W 2 D 1 L 2, GF 3, GA 6

Moreover, the two away games before that were draws at Burnley and Newcastle, while the two previous home games were comprehensive defeats by West Ham and Manchester City.

Roy and Ray have clearly managed to tighten up our leaky defence (apart from the suicidal performance at Wolves, which accounts for four of the six away goals conceded), but it doesn’t seem to work at home. And I’m beginning to wonder, a bit like David Mitchell’s Nazi in the famous sketch: are we the problem? Do the team crumble under the weight of the fans’ expectations at Vicarage Road? Does the perceived greater need to win home games (even though the points are the same wherever you win them) force Roy to compromise his defensive principles, with disastrous results?

I’ve written before about my conviction that the concept of home advantage is a myth – or at least, it only exists in so far as managers and players believe it does. (I’m sure the philosophers have a term for that, too.) Last season was an interesting experiment in that regard: the Hornets’ home record – 19 wins, 2 draws, 2 defeats – was outstanding, it’s true, but it was achieved in the almost total absence of home fans. Indeed, the three games where fans were allowed to attend saw one of the two home defeats and one of the draws. The players may have made regular statements about how it wasn’t the same without the fans there, but when they were, they performed worse.

Clearly, promotion and the return of proper crowds means we can’t properly compare this season with last. The fact remains that Watford have performed miserably at home for the most part; take out the first 70 minutes against Villa, the Man United game and the dogged – but ultimately unsuccessful – resistance against Spurs and you’re left with precious little from which to construct a highlights reel.

So bearing all this in mind, while we’ve got a string of potentially winnable home games against teams from the bottom half of the table, it’s probably best not to get our hopes up. The tension in the stands at those games will be almost unbearable (unless the unthinkable happens and we dominate our opponents and win with ease), and it will be transmitted to the players. It would probably be better if we were playing Leeds, Burnley, Brentford and Everton away and Liverpool and City at home.

As for me, I’m trying to view the whole situation philosophically.

Next steps

Given that, going into the last month of the 2018/19 season, Watford had two possible routes to European football, it’s tempting to view the denouement as a disappointment. In the cold light of day, though, reaching a cup final for only the second time in the club’s history, and finishing in the highest league position since 1987, has to be viewed as success. It’s also progress, and it was encouraging that the statement from Gino Pozzo and Scott Duxbury after the Cup final emphasised that this is just the beginning. Of course, there’s plenty that can go wrong, but I’m confident that I won’t have to wait another 35 years (by which time I’ll be 91, if I’m still here) to see the Hornets appear in another cup final.

So, what do Watford need to do to keep up the momentum and ensure that next season is even better? I have a few thoughts…

On the pitch
The most obvious thing that needs fixing is our defence. After three consecutive shutouts (against Brighton and Everton in the league and QPR in the cup), we didn’t register a single clean sheet after February 15th – that’s 15 games. Some of the defending was positively inept, and towards the end of the season we were routinely conceding the first goal, even when we were apparently on top.

It feels like we need an injection of youthful energy. At 28, Christian Kabasele and Kiko Femenía are the youngest members of the regular defence, and Kabasele has had a wobbly season, having previously looked like a nailed-on starter for years to come. We know Miguel Britos is leaving this summer, and it wouldn’t be a surprise in Sebastian Prödl joins him. That would create a couple of vacancies for fresh blood.

Maybe one of those vacancies will be filled by the promising Ben Wilmot, though it seems that the club views him more as a defensive midfielder. Either way, that leads on to my second point: it would be good to see the club’s talented youngsters being integrated into the Premier League squad next season. The team is starting to feel a bit old (only three of the 11 who started the Cup final were under 28: Hughes, Delofeu and Doucouré) and needs rejuvenating. Wilmot and Domingos Quina have made the strongest case, and then there’s Nathaniel Chalobah (if he still counts as young) and the enigma that is Adalberto Peñaranda. What with them and the many young players we have out on loan, the future looks bright – as long as they’re given a chance.

The other area where we’ve fallen down this season is in finishing. Obviously, no team converts all their chances (though Man City get close), but, as noted above, there were a significant number of games this season where we failed to turn dominance into goals and paid the price for sloppiness in front of goal. Given the competition in the transfer market for proven goalscorers, our best hope is probably that one of our overseas contingent will prove to be the answer in the medium to long term; for example, Cucho Hernandez has had rave reviews playing for Huesca in La Liga, and the Brazilian 17-year-old wunderkind João Pedro can apparently join us in January.

Off the pitch
The first one is easy: reinstate the Z-Cars theme as the music the team walk out to at Vicarage Road. Whatever the reasoning behind replacing it with ‘I’m still standing’, the resentment and outright anger caused by the move should be reason enough to reverse it. It’s part of our tradition and, let’s be honest, we don’t have a lot to boast about in that regard.

The second one is more of a challenge. We have the second smallest stadium in the Premier League, yet we struggle to fill it for all but the biggest games. Look around during a typical match and you’ll see swathes of empty seats in the Family and Sir Elton John stands in particular.  Given that the announced attendance figure is usually close to the ground capacity, this can only mean that season ticket holders are staying away. The suspicion is that they’re actually fans of another team and only attend when that team is playing.

I can vouch for this, having had two empty seats next to me in the Rookery (in prime position behind the goal, not too far back) all season after the previous occupants moved over to the Graham Taylor Stand. They were only occupied twice, and one of those was a cup game. Given that there is apparently a waiting list for season tickets, I can only assume that someone bought them and didn’t use them.

I know the club is trying to address this – and it needs to, because it’s not a good look. More generally, there is a job to be done in marketing the attractions of Premier League football at Vicarage Road across a wider catchment area – much as the club did in the 1980s, with some success. After all, if you ignore Greater London and look north, east and west, the nearest PL clubs are Leicester and Norwich. A club as successful as Watford ought be able to draw in neutrals from across Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire, and from further afield too. Hopefully, reaching the FA Cup final will have helped spread the message that this is a club that’s going places.

You can prove anything with statistics

The excellent news was announced this week that Lloyd Doyley’s contract has been extended by another year. The only puzzling thing is why the club has kept offering him one-year contracts for the past few seasons, rather than tying him down to a longer deal. Maybe they just take him for granted.

They, and we, shouldn’t. Recently I came across a section of the club website that I hadn’t looked at properly before, the Stats page, and the figures for central defenders make interesting reading:

Angella - 35 games, 42 fouls, 6 yellow cards, 1 red card
Cassetti - 32 games, 35 fouls, 8 yellow, 0 red
Ekstrand - 30 games, 27 fouls, 10 yellow, 0 red
Doyley - 23 games, 6 fouls, 1 yellow, 0 red

I’d say that fouls and yellow cards are a pretty good yardstick by which to measure a defender’s skill: after all, if they get their positioning right and time their tackles correctly, they don’t commit fouls and don’t get booked. Now I rate all four of these players highly, but the stats clearly show who the best defender is. Angella commits an average of 1.2 fouls a game and gets booked once every six games: Cassetti has a similar fouls/game average, 1.1, but gets booked once every four matches: and Ekstrand is on 0.9 fouls a game, but one booking every three (which isn’t going to make him popular with the manager – sorry, Head Coach).

Now look at Lloyd: 0.2 fouls a game (or, to put it another way, one every five games) and just one yellow all season. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why he is indisputably the best defender at the club (and has been for years). Angella may score more goals, Cassetti may have a better beard, Ekstrand may speak better Swedish (okay, I’m struggling here), but if you want someone to actually stop the opposition scoring goals, Lloyd’s should be the first name on the teamsheet every week.