The story so far

Uniquely in my 46 years of supporting Watford, I’ve seen all eight games so far this season live – seven of them in person, while I watched Burnley on Sky Sports (and boy, I wish I hadn’t). So I feel as qualified as anyone to make a few observations on our season so far, as we head into the second international break.

Walter Mazzarri doesn’t like making team changes...
He really doesn’t. As far as I can work out, every single change he’s made to the starting line-up (omitting the League Cup game against Gillingham, obviously) has been enforced by an injury or a suspension, apart from those he made at West Ham. That was the first match after the transfer window closed, and he immediately selected his marquee signings; Janmaat came in for Amrabat and Pereyra for Guedioura. That aside, once you’re in the starting XI, it appears that you’re there for good.

... which is bad news for Isaac Success...
After a series of steadily longer and more impressive cameos, Success scored a fabulous first goal against Bournemouth. The clamour for him to be given the chance to show what he can do for the full 90 minutes is growing, but I suspect we may have to wait a while longer. Mazzarri has been making noises about Success needing to add defensive capabilities to his game, and what with that and the injury that’s caused him to pull out of the Nigeria squad this week, I wouldn’t put any money on him starting against Middlesbrough.

... but good news for Odion Ighalo
For what it’s worth, if he’s fit, I think Success should come in for Ighalo for the next match. We can all see that Iggy isn’t right, and hasn’t been for six months now. It’s not that he’s not trying his best, but there’s something missing, that crucial 10% that made him such a lethal striker for the first half of last season. His hold-up play is poor, every shot he takes is scuffed or misdirected (the goal at West Ham needed a deflection to go in), and he continues to fail to pass to better-placed teammates far too often.

You don’t have to be an amateur psychologist to hypothesise that this is all linked to the illness, and subsequent death, of his father. Grief affects people in different ways; in Iggy’s case, it seems to have robbed him of his spark. I’d suggest it would be better for all concerned if someone else led the line for a while, and he could try to rediscover that spark as an impact substitute.

Swings and roundabouts
This time last year, we were all worrying about how Watford were going to score enough goals to win matches, while congratulating Quique Flores on the defensive discipline he’d so quickly instilled. Then, when we did start scoring, we fretted about the fact that almost every goal was being scored by Deeney or Ighalo.

No worries on that front any more; eight games in and we’ve already had seven different scorers. We’ve scored in all but one of those games, too. What we haven’t managed is a clean sheet. In particular, our propensity to concede goals from crosses is worrying; I liked the line in the Guardian on Friday, to the effect that our wing-backs clearly haven’t got to grips with the ‘back’ part of their job description. Maybe Brice Dja Djédjé will help to remedy that, if we ever get to see him in action.

If nothing else, the gulf in approach between Flores and Mazzarri proves that the Pozzos don’t have a ‘type’ when it comes to Head Coaches. Given a choice, though, I’d opt for the Mazzarri way, as I suspect most Watford fans would. This already looks like being a lot more fun than last season was.

Whatever happened to nippy little strikers?
When it comes to signing forwards, one thing is clear: the Pozzos like ’em big. Since winning promotion we’ve signed Oularé, Success and Okaka, all of them huge, strapping blokes. (Watching Okaka’s entertaining cameo at West Ham, I was unavoidably reminded of Devon White.) The not particularly small Ighalo looks puny by comparison, and I suspect Jerome Sinclair won’t get near the first team until he beefs up a bit.

This all promises further entertainment for Watford fans, and I would love to see us field a three-man front line of Deeney, Success and Okaka, just for the looks on the opposition’s faces. Is there still a place for the small, speedy striker in the modern game? Not at Watford, on the face of it.

Spoiled for choice

Throughout 2015-16, Watford effectively managed (and managed very well, it has to be said) with just three strikers: Troy Deeney, Odion Ighalo and Obbi Oularé. Given that the latter was only trusted to play in the early rounds of the FA Cup, it’s a good thing neither of our two star strikers picked up an injury.

We got away it with it last season, but the signs are that the club aren’t prepared to take a similar risk for 2016-17. As of today, we have no fewer than nine strikers signed to full-time contracts: the three named above, returning loanees Matej Vydra and Mathias Ranegie, new signings Adalberto Peñaranda (that accent is going to get very irritating), Isaac Success and Jerome Sinclair, and under-21 goal machine Alex Jakubiak. Moreover, the club has publicly stated that it has no plans to sell any of its strikers.

Okay, we can take that last statement with a pinch of salt (I’d imagine that if anyone came in with a decent bid for Vydra or Ranegie, Watford would bite their hand off). Nevertheless, Walter Mazzarri has an embarrassment of riches up front, and you’d hope this might make for a more entertaining style of football than Quique served up.

Much will doubtless change between now and the first game of the season, but it’s fun to speculate about how Walter will deploy his strikers. My best guess is that Deeney and Ighalo will start, with Success and Peñaranda on the bench and ready to take over if either of last season’s stars falters. Oularé, Vydra and Ranegie will all be sent out on loan (and it would be a major surprise if either of the latter two is ever seen in a Watford shirt again), while Sinclair and Jakubiak will be forced to scuffle around in the under-21 team, waiting for a call-up to the big time (or a decent run in the League Cup).

But who knows. Maybe Mazzarri will be so impressed by Matty Vydra in pre-season training that he’ll build a team around him. Maybe Success will play as a winger (as far as I can make out, he’s a forward in the broader sense), giving Sinclair a shot at the first team (or at least the bench).

Whatever happens, if Steven Berghuis can carry on where he left off at the end of last season, and Walter restores Almen Abdi to a more forward-looking role, we ought to have the capability to pose a serious threat to opposing defences. I can’t wait.

Work in progress

Having missed all three December home matches due to family commitments, I enjoyed reacquainting myself with the Pozzos’ Watford on New Year’s Day, despite the result. 

Actually, even the result wasn’t so bad. Nice (and novel) as it is to be sitting in the playoff positions at the turn of the year, I really hope we don’t go up this year. Our last two visits to the Premiership were so brief and ghastly precisely because we went up too quickly, borne on a momentum that we didn’t have the resources to maintain once we reached the so-called promised land. If we are going to make another trip there, I’d like to think we might be able to stay up this time, and for that we need more time to prepare. It takes two years, as per the Pozzo masterplan, or three or four for that matter, so be it. By that point, we might have some financial stability – and maybe even a four-sided ground.

As for the team, my initial reservations haven’t entirely dissipated. True, I can now tell my Abdis from my Anyas, though I’m still a little hazy on the qualities of some of the less-featured loanees like Fanchone and Battochio. My knowledge of basic stuff like backgrounds and ages could be better, too. For instance, it’s only in the last few days that I’ve grasped that Vydra is a mere stripling of 20 (thank you Sky Sports), while Geijo is a surprisingly mature 30 (thank you the Watford programme). Maybe this will all sink in eventually, but I suspect there’s a part of my brain that is simply unwilling to devote any space to Geoffrey Mujangi Bia’s CV, given that he’s probably destined to be a very minor footnote in the history of the club.

There’s also the unwieldly size of the squad, which may start to be addressed during the transfer window. Sadly, that will probably mean players who have previously done a decent job for the club being palmed off on anyone who’ll have them: Chris Iwelumo, Carl Dickinson, Joe Garner (all right, I won’t miss him), Matt Whichelow, Ross Jenkins, Dale Bennett and Lee Hodson are all some way off making the matchday squad and may welcome the chance to start again somewhere new. And I wonder if we’ll ever see Stephen McGinn in a Watford shirt again? Without regular reserve fixtures, there’s no easy way for a long-term injury absentee like him to regain the match fitness he needs to get back in the thick of the action.

Sorry, this is all sounding a bit churlish. Of course I’m enjoying the unaccustomed sight of a Watford team playing brilliant, incisive attacking football, and long may it continue. But the Pozzo project is still a work in progress, and the fact that we’re currently sitting pretty in sixth place doesn’t alter that.

Wow!

There’s no other word for it: this afternoon’s demolition of Cardiff City was simply stupendous. Add in a similarly stylish performance against QPR and the win against Leicester before that, and you have to conclude that this Watford team is in the middle of a purple patch.

There was so much to admire today: Will Buckley’s speed and trickery on the wing, leading to Lee Naylor’s humiliating substitution with less than half an hour gone; the strength and movement of Graham and Sordell up front; the tireless running and challenging of John Eustace and Jordan Mutch that stopped Cardiff ever dominating the midfield; and a solid 90 minutes from the whole back four, even if the Cardiff goal did highlight their unfortunate tendency to give opposing strikers too much room at times.

All this and not one but two penalties for the Hornets – and we even scored one of them, which is frankly remarkable. (Cudos to Danny Graham, too, for having the balls to take the second after making such a hash of the first.) Oh, and they actually scored three goals at the Rookery end, equalling the total for the season to date, I believe.

All in all, I haven’t enjoyed a football match so much in ages. As with last season, however it ends up (and I’m still not taking anything for granted), you have to give Malky credit for making Watford so damn good to watch.

The pantomime season

That’s surely how we’re going to remember 2008/09 if it goes on the way it’s begun. Bizarre injuries, the goal that wasn’t, Watford conceding ridiculous numbers of penalties, a Watford keeper actually saving a penalty (never mind three in a row), sendings-off, deflected goals, unlikely comebacks – it’s not even November and there’s already been enough incident for two or three seasons.

And I’ll tell you what – it’s a hell of a lot more entertaining than last season. Aidy might be tearing his hair out, but for me at least, Watford matches have become something to look forward to again.