Odds and sods

It’s been a while since I posted anything here – mainly because, in the midst of the turmoil of the autumn, I didn’t have anything startlingly original to say about what Watford could or should do to drag themselves out of the hole they’d got themselves into. Who knew that the answer would be something as simple as hiring an English head coach who knows the Premier League and how to stay in it? (Not that we’re actually out of the hole yet, of course, but we have at least started to build a ladder.)

I still haven’t got anything particularly original to contribute, but here are a few random thoughts occasioned by yesterday’s topsy-turvy FA Cup tie:

• Isn’t it great to hear ‘Z-Cars’ all the way through for a change? It’s almost worth paying the £10 just for the sax solo in the middle.
• For anyone who’s been trumpeting Watford’s strength in depth, the line-up Pearson sent out against Tranmere was a bit of a wake-up call. Giving the players who busted a gut for the team over those four magnificent Christmas games the day off was absolutely understandable, but when you also discount the long-term injured, what’s left looked very much like a collection of odds and sods. In happier circumstances, yesterday’s team would have included the likes of Prödl, Cleverly, Welbeck and Janmaat, a core of battle-hardened pros who would have been much less likely to crumble under pressure in the latter stages.
• Talking of pressure, it can’t be much fun when you’re a fringe player and a handful of cup ties are the only chance you get to prove what you can do. Isaac Success and Domingos Quina in particular seemed to be self-consciously auditioning for the first team yesterday, showing off their tricks and flicks whenever they could. Quina is pure class and mostly got away with it, not least because he balances the showy stuff with a furious competitiveness. As for Success, much of what he tried didn’t come off, and his best moments were those when he opted for simplicity and direct running.
• Personally, I will be very surprised if both Success and Andre Gray are in the Premier League squad of 25 the club names at the end of the month. Success has been here three and half years now, and while he’s got something, the refusal of successive head coaches to trust him with anything more than cameo appearances speaks volumes. He needs regular football, and he’s not going to get it at Watford. A loan or sale in this transfer window would be best for all concerned.
• As for Gray, he’s unfortunate to be stuck at a club that doesn’t play in a formation that suits him. Playing him as the lone striker yesterday just highlighted his limitations, as he was completely neutralised by a bog-standard lower-division lunk of a centre-half. His best spells at the club have come playing alongside Troy Deeney – the two of them built up a decent understanding for a spell early last season – but unless Pearson is tempted to revert to 4-4-2, then Gray is going to be stuck on the subs’ bench for the forseeable future. He too might be better off leaving, but I suspect Watford won’t let both him and Success go unless they can bring in another striker.
• One player I’d expected to see in the line-up yesterday was Dimitri Foulquier, but instead he was loaned to Granada for the rest of the season a couple of days ago. I feel sorry for Foulquier. I saw him in the League Cup tie against Coventry and thought he looked like a decent full-back, solid and tidy. The club obviously saw something they liked, too, or they wouldn’t have recalled him after two seasons of loans and put him in the first-team squad, and both Gracia and Flores regularly included him in the 17. But he had the misfortune to make his league debut in the 8-0 drubbing at Man City, and copped some of the blame for the scoreline. After that, some fans were never going to give him a chance.
• One final thought about players who might have expected to get a game against Tranmere: what the hell has happened to Marvin Zeegelaar? As far as I know, he’s still at the club (I’ve occasionally spotted his name in under-23 line-ups), but he doesn’t even get his name listed on the back of the programme any more. I know he turned out not to be the long-term solution at left-back he was intended to be, but I’d be intrigued to know what he’s done to be sent to purgatory.

About that last post...

There’s nothing like actual events to expose the blithe theorising of so-called experts. Nine games into the Premier League season and the complacency I expressed in my last post looks downright naive. In my defence, I’m not the only one; it’s obvious that the club hierarchy didn’t see the Hornets’ disastrous start to the season coming either, or they would have made different choices in the transfer market over the summer.

In retrospect, the Pozzo regime’s habit of changing Head Coach every summer starts to make more sense. If nothing else, it gave everyone at the club a chance to reset the clock – forget about the disappointing end to the previous season and start again with a clean slate. Whereas it seems that Javi’s team just carried the woeful end to last season on into the Brighton game and beyond.

Wiser heads than me have debated at great length what’s gone wrong. I’d just like to highlight one aspect of Watford’s current stint in the Premier League that continues to bother me, and that may be part of the problem; the inability to integrate young players into the team.

When Quique took the Hornets into that first PL season in 2015, he’d quite deliberately been provided with a squad packed with experienced, battle-hardened players; new signings included Capoue, Britos, Holebas, Nyom, Behrami and Prödl. It worked, too; we didn’t ship too many goals, Iggy and Troy banged in the goals and we stayed up fairly comfortably.

Since then, it’s been much the same story. Four years on, Capoue, Holebas and Prödl are still here, four years older and starting to slow down (visibly, in Jose’s case). More importantly, very few younger players have been integrated into the first team. This only really hit home to me when I was reading the programme before the FA Cup Final and looking at the ages of the Watford team; only Will Hughes (24) and Gerard Deulofeu (25) were under the age of 28.

We have tried to use younger players from time to time, but it hasn’t really worked. Take 23-year-old Isaac Success; three years after his debut, he still looks like a work in progress. But he’s a rare exception, in that he has at least been selected for Premier League games. More often, talented young players are restricted to cup games and/or sent out on loan, rather than being trusted to play a role in the first team. I’m sure I’m not the only Watford fan who was sorry to see Ben Wilmot sent to Swansea, and as for Domingos Quina, there can’t be many Premier League clubs where such an obviously talented player would struggle even to get on the bench. And don’t get me started on Pontus Dahlberg, a goalkeeper who is highly rated by everyone who comes into contact with him, yet doesn’t even get to take part in the pre-match warm-ups. I’d love to know the plan for his development.

The impression the club gives right now is of one that is simply too scared to give youth its chance. The rapid turnover of Head Coaches doesn’t help; why should they take a risk on untested players when they know they won’t be here long enough to enjoy the fruits of the experiment?

I’m not suggesting for a moment that we should flood the first team with callow youngsters; merely that there’s no point signing talented young players if there’s no intention of giving them a chance to show what they can do – and that  an injection of youthful energy and ambition can be just what’s needed to buck up a struggling team. If any club’s history is proof of that, lord know it’s ours.

Alternative end of the season awards 2018-19

To no one’s surprise, Etienne Capoue has been named Watford’s Player of the Season. No argument from me there. But there are a few other players who are worthy of an award of one kind of another. So, without further ado...

The Keith Pritchett award for most under-rated player
There are a few candidates for this title, but I’m giving it to Kiko Femenía. Equally adept as a wing-back or an out-or-out winger, his pace keeps things tight on the right-side in our half and terrifies opposing defenders in theirs, and his delivery is reliable. I can’t recall a significant error from him all season, and he even scored a rare goal. I think we rather take his excellence for granted – he hasn’t even got his own chant.

The ‘Heidar on the wing?’ award for best performance in the wrong position
Let’s face it, Will Hughes isn’t a winger. In an ideal world, he’d be playing a Paul Scholes-type role, dropping in behind a lone striker or forming the tip of a midfield diamond. Indeed, the goals he scores are very Scholesish (Scholesian? Scholesesque?). Instead, Javi’s preferred formation has led to a season stuck out on the right wing, where Will has got on with the job admirably, ferreting for the ball, executing all manner of nifty passes and generally annoying the opposition. I hope he gets to play a more central role one day, though.

The Roger Joslyn award for sustained aggression
It was in a meaningless home game at the end of last season that I first noticed Etienne Capoue’s metamorphosis from haughty midfield general to snarling bite-yer-legs merchant, as he snapped into tackle after tackle with gusto. That’s continued this season, to the point where his total of 13 yellow cards is just one short of Jose Holebas’s record of 14 in a season – which, lest we forget, is also a Premier League record. Amid all the plaudits for the way Capoue and Doucouré have bossed the midfield all season, let’s not forget that it’s founded on Etienne’s newfound willingness to get stuck in.

The Etienne Capoue award for fading away
Remember when Capoue used to score a few spectacular goals in the opening month of the season, guaranteeing that pundits were still lauding him long after his performances had plateaued? This season it’s been Roberto Pereyra’s turn. He scored both goals in the opening-day win against Brighton, and by the end of October he had five. There was one more against Chelsea on Boxing Day; since then, nothing. He’s not just in the team as a goalscorer, of course, but in the second half of the season there have been periods, and even whole games, where he’s been all but invisible. There’s so much potential there, but we haven’t seen Bobby P at his bewitching best very often since the autumn.

The Troy Deeney award for being Troy Deeney
This has been an archetypal Troy Deeney season. We’ve had goals, we’ve had a controversial sending off, we’ve had his usual frankness (occasionally tipping over into foolishness) in front of the media, and of course we’ve had the drama of that last-minute penalty in the FA Cup semi-final. If he somehow manages to score the winning goal against Man City in the final, this will be the most Troy Deeney season ever.

The Richard Flash award for failing to live up to his name
This hasn’t exactly been a bad season for Isaac Success. He’s scored a few goals, and when given the chance to start, he usually executes the role he’s been given well enough. But his decision-making is woeful: he shoots when he should pass and passes when he should shoot. There’s a player there, as they say, but there’s also a risk that he’ll follow Stefano Okaka in the line of ‘potential successors to Troy who ended up just being brought on at the end of the game to rough up the opposing defenders’.

The Sietes man of mystery award
I’ve been excited about Adalberto Peñaranda ever since we signed him in early 2016. A Venezuelan prodigy who had apparently set the Under-20 World Cup alight, he was going to be our very own Messi. At first he stayed in Europe, on loan at Granada, then Udinese, then Malaga. Well, fair enough, we needed to get the lad acclimatised to European football. Then there were problems getting him a work permit to play in England. Then we got him one and he arrived in the autumn – and nothing happened. This mythical creature finally proved to be a real person (albeit with very strange hair) when he played against Woking in the FA Cup 3rd round. He looked... okay, perhaps a bit over-eager to impress, which is understandable in the circumstances. A substitute appearance against Newcastle in the next round came and went, and that was that (apart from a season-ending injury sustained in training). If he doesn’t start appearing in the first team squad early next season, I’m going to start thinking I just imagined the whole thing.

Forwards in reverse

It seems churlish to complain, given how well the ’orns have been playing for the past couple of months (even if the results don’t reflect that), but there is one fact that stands out as we approach the halfway point of the Premier League season: our strikers aren’t scoring.

It wasn’t until I checked that I realised quite how serious the goal drought is. Troy has scored two in 12 starts, Andre Gray scored three in the first six games, but has barely played since, and Isaac Success has just scored the one Premier League goal – albeit a corker, finishing off a sublime training ground routine for the third against Huddersfield. The dates of their most recent goals are, respectively, September 2nd, September 22nd and October 27th. (By the way, I’m not counting Gerard Deulofeu as a striker here; he’s a winger who’s sometimes deployed in the middle of the pitch, which isn’t the same thing at all.)

It’s not as if they’re missing lots of chances, either. In the last couple of games, Troy had one against Everton where he got a toe to a tricky aerial pass (it was barely a half-chance), and against Cardiff there was that sliding attempt to reach a through ball that gave Neil Warnock a conniption fit. That’s about it.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more it seems that Javi Gracia is building a successful football team that isn’t designed to create chances for its strikers. Which is a bit odd, isn’t it?

I may be prejudiced here, as I was brought up on GT’s teams where everything revolved around supplying the ammunition for the centre-forwards. In their early-80s pomp, Barnes and Callaghan were tasked with providing the crosses for Blissett and Jenkins to convert, and the service was so good that they filled their boots. The wingers scored a fair few themselves as well, but that wasn’t their primary function.

Now look at the current Watford team. The modern equivalents of Barnes and Callaghan are Deulofeu and Pereyra (and Hughes, when fit), but you don’t often see them crossing to a striker. That’s partly because they’re hugely talented players who are more than capable of scoring themselves, as they’ve demonstrated. They’re also, let’s be honest, a bit selfish at times, trying to dribble round one more player, or curl the ball round the goalie from the edge of the area, rather than pass to a better-placed teammate.

Even when crosses do arrive in inviting areas, it’s rarely a striker who’s on the end of them. Unusually, both our goals against Everton came from crosses; the first found Bobby P, who was unlucky not to get the addition to the tally that his volley deserved, while the second was met by  Doucouré running in from deep.

So where does this leave Troy? It seems that his role in the team these days is mainly to keep opposing defenders occupied, thus creating more space for our creative midfielders. It’s a reasonable ploy; every Premier League manager knows that you can’t risk giving Troy too much space, so they’re going to allocate one of their stronger defenders to stick close to him. Still, it seems a shame that a player of Troy’s experience and expertise has been largely reduced to the role of a decoy, apart from his (admittedly important) role as the one who wins headers from goal kicks, or who holds up the ball and lays it off.

As a result of all this, most our goals this season have been spectacular efforts (narrowing down the shortlist for the goal of the season award is going to be a nightmare). But I can’t help wondering whether, if we could just create a few more chances for Troy (or Isaac, or Andre), we might have the opportunity to truly fulfil the potential of this remarkable squad of players.

Choice remarks

Back in July, I wrote an excitable post about the number and range of striking options available to Walter Mazzarri as he took charge of his new team. Given that Stefano Okaka’s brace against Everton are the only goals scored by a Watford striker since Troy notched up his 99th goal against Bournemouth on October 1st, it seems like a good time to revisit that list. Where did it all go wrong?

Troy Deeney
He will deny it, of course, but it’s hard not to conclude that the pressure of being on 99 Watford goals is getting to Troy. In every game since Bournemouth he’s had chances to reach 100, but he’s muffed them all. It’s a shame, because that cultured lob at West Ham was the goal of a striker at the peak of his powers. If we ever get awarded a penalty (I don’t think we’ve had one yet this season), that may be his best chance to get the monkey off his back.

Odion Ighalo
A shadow of his former self, and now fourth choice when all the forwards are fit. As I’ve written before, I can’t help thinking the illness and subsequent death of his father had something to do with his drastic loss of form. All strikers go through dry spells, but we’re beyond that now. I would send him on loan to a Championship club in January in the hope that he can rediscover his mojo against weaker defences. If that doesn’t work, or if he refuses to go, then sell him.

Obbi Oularé
Currently on a season-long loan to Zulte Waregem in Belgium, where he’s scored one goal in nine appearances. It’s anyone’s guess whether we’ll ever see him in a Watford shirt again, but I don’t think we’ll be negotiating an emergency recall just yet.

Matej Vydra
I said in July that if we received a decent offer for Matty, he’d be off, and Derby duly obliged. Two goals in 17 appearances to date suggests that he’s not finding Championship defences as obliging as he used to, and that we made the right decision.

Mathias Ranegie
Here’s a thing: the big Swede is still a Watford player. He’s been on loan at Djurgaardens in Sweden, where the season ended in November (he scored six goals in 25 appearances), so he should theoretically be back at London Colney now, training with the rest of the Watford squad. I say ‘theoretically’, as I doubt that’s the case, somehow.

Adalberto Peñaranda
The teenage prodigy (he’s still only 19) is on loan at Udinese, where he’s only made five appearances (four off the bench) and has had injury problems. Jon Sinclair’s invaluable player listing at wfc.net says he’s due to join Watford properly next season. We’ll see. Another one for the future.

Isaac Success
A handful of exciting substitute appearances and an all-action performance at Middlesbrough have been enough to saddle Isaac with the burden of the fans’ expectations, and with Troy and Iggy faltering, it would be great if he could step up over the Christmas period. But the fact that Walter is so reluctant to give him a start suggests that he still hasn’t put his injury problems behind him.

Jerome Sinclair
Another who Walter has used sparingly, until his surprise selection in midweek, suggesting it’s taken him a while to get up to speed. I haven’t seen him play yet, so I can’t really comment. But at the rate the injuries are piling up, he may get his chance soon.

Alex Jakubiak
Last year’s under-21 goal machine is currently warming the bench at League One Fleetwood, where he’s only made it onto the pitch three times. Given that he’s the same age as Sinclair and Success, and a year older that Peñaranda, I don’t rate his chances of making it at Vicarage Road, sadly.

Stefano Okaka
Not included in my original list, as he hadn’t signed at that point, but I’m very glad he did. Like Success, injury has limited him to a handful of promising cameo performances so far. If he could get properly fit, he could be a key player in the second half of the season.

So there you go. We still have nine strikers on the books, and yet they’ve only scored seven league goals between them so far. It’s not good enough, is it?

Personally, I’d like to see us line up with a front three of Deeney, Okaka and Success, or Deeney and Okaka supported by Success and Amrabat on the wings. There’s enough muscle and talent there to frighten any Premier League defence. Whether we’ll ever get the chance to see that, though, is the big question.

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.