The relegation game

One of the benefits of having been a Watford fan for nearly half a century is that you can see patterns across the years and decades. It also lessens the pain of relegation, to a certain extent; I’ve seen it happen before, and doubtless I will again.

In fact, all but one of Watford’s relegations have happened since I started supporting them in 1970. I can’t tell you much about the club’s descent from Division 1 of the Southern League to Division 2 in 1902-03, and Oliver Phillips’ centenary history of the club doesn’t explain what went wrong. He does make it clear, though, that relegation had been coming, with the club finishing 14th out of 15, and then 13th out of 16, in the previous two seasons.

In that respect, it sounds similar to the first relegation I witnessed, from Division 2 in 1971-72. Having finally achieved the longed-for promotion to the second tier three seasons earlier, the Hornets had found the step up a struggle from the start, and didn’t have the money to invest in the quality of players they needed to be competitive. Successive finishes of 19th and 18th out of 22 were followed by last place in a dismal season.

Watford’s first two ventures into the Premier League both ended in similar fashion, albeit after a single season. In both 1999-2000 and 2006-07, we’d been promoted before we were really ready for it, couldn’t afford transformative signings, and injuries to key players sabotaged any hopes of survival.

Our other relegation from the top division, in 1987-88, is also easily explained. In just a few months, Dave Bassett managed to undo pretty much all the good work Graham Taylor had done over the previous decade, weakening the backroom staff and the playing squad and deploying an unappealing brand of football based on the long ball and the offside trap. Despite Bassett’s departure in January, replacement Steve Harrison couldn’t stop the ship sinking.

The reasons for the other two relegations are harder to pin down. In 1974-75, the Hornets followed a season when they’d finished 7th in Division 3 with relegation, and from Oliver Phillips’ account (I was only 12 at the time, and the nuances passed me by), it seems that they sleepwalked into it. Despite the presence of several players who would come back up under GT a few years later (including Jenkins, Garner, Downes and Joslyn), and despite only needing seven points from the last 11 games to be safe, they went down by a single point. (By the way, one of the teams that went down with us was Bournemouth. Like I say, patterns keep recurring.)

Likewise, in 1995-96, we went down from what was then called Division 1 (ie the second tier) after a 7th-place finish the year before. Injuries were certainly a factor here, as was a lack of investment from notoriously cautious Chairman Jack Petchey. Roeder was replaced with a returning GT with 17 games to go, giving us all hope. But Ian Grant catches the mood well in his piece in Tales From The Vicarage Volume II: “Had we conjured up any kind of form, any kind of running start for our dramatic late surge, we almost certainly would’ve escaped; instead, we seemed caught in a hopeless conundrum, as if imprisoned in a windowless room with only a trapdoor for escape.” It went down to a final home game against Leicester where we needed to win and hope other results went our way. We didn’t, and they didn’t anyway.

So how does 2019-20 stack up against these previous examples? We certainly can’t blame underinvestment, given the current value of the squad (though a bit more money spent on defenders last summer might have helped). Likewise, injuries haven’t been a major factor; we’ve had a few, but not nearly as many in previous Premier League seasons, recent and otherwise. We do have to mention the pandemic, though. Who knows how things would have turned out without a lengthy break just after our famous victory over Liverpool?

Overall, though, this year’s relegation most closely resembles 1975 and 1996. At the start of the season, as we did then, we seemed to be on an upward trajectory, with an 11th-place finish and an FA Cup final appearance. But whether through complacency, or lack of focus, that forward momentum not only stopped, but slammed into reverse at a speed that proved impossible to halt. The lesson seems to be that the time of greatest danger for a football club is when it appears to be on the rise. Let’s hope we learn that lesson if and when we get back to the Premier League.

Stuck in the middle

As I prepare to embark on my 49th season as a Watford fan, it’s hard to remember a time when the stakes have been lower (which is ironic, given how high the financial rewards are).

In pretty much every one of the past 48 seasons, the Hornets’ goal was either to get promoted or to avoid getting relegated, and finishing in mid-table was thus a mark of either failure or success, respectively. This season, it’s simply what is expected.

Four years into our Premier League adventure, the outside world, from the media to the fans of opposing teams, finally seems to have accepted that Watford are doing something right; if anyone out there is predicting relegation for the Hornets, I’ve yet to see it. But looking in the other direction, last season showed how tough it is even to finish seventh, never mind break into the top six. In other words, it seems almost inevitable that Watford will finish somewhere between 8th and 16th in the Premier League table. Like I say, low stakes.

Of course, I’m fully aware that there’s plenty that can go wrong between now and May. Last season, the squad was blessedly injury-free, for the most part; this season may be different. Key players could be unsettled by interest from elsewhere and end up leaving in January. And what if Javi himself is tempted away by a bigger club and his replacement doesn’t work out?

Equally, there’s plenty that can go right. With a month of last season to go, it was within our power to grasp a European place, and I’m sure talk within the club is of what needs to happen to get over the line this time round. Will Gerard Delofeu turn into a 20-goals-a-season striker? Can Roberto Pereyra finally produce a consistent season rather than patches of brilliance? Will Adalberto Peñaranda turn out to be the world-beating football genius he was rumoured to be when we signed him? There are a lot of pieces that have to fall into place if we’re going to better last season, but we’ve never had a stronger squad, backed by a coaching and support team that has been carefully assembled to get the very best out of those players.

So yes, we’re probably going to finish in mid-table. But in the process, maybe we can take some points off the top six (three of whom look as if they could be vulnerable this year). Perhaps we can go on another cup run (and hope someone else manages to dispose of Man City and Liverpool before we have to play them). The stakes may be low, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun.

Before we get carried away...

It was a classic case of getting over-excited. A little under a year ago, on this very blog, I wrote: “This already looks like being a lot more fun than last season was.”

In my defence, this was after we’d come back from conceding two early goals to wallop West Ham 4-2, and then thrillingly beaten Mourinho’s Man U 3-1 the following week. But it does illustrate the folly of counting any chickens so early in the season. By May, of course, ‘fun’ was the last word anyone would have used to describe watching Mazzarri’s Watford.

So, in that spirit, I’m going to ignore the many positives from yesterday’s hugely enjoyable trip to Southampton and focus on the negatives:

Our defence is made of porcelain
Successful teams are usually founded on a stable defence who play together regularly enough to form a tight unit. Meanwhile, in four league games, we’ve already fielded five different centre-backs, with a further two out with long-term injuries. I hope Molla Wagué is match-fit, because the odds are that he’ll be needed before the end of the month.

And that’s before I’ve even mentioned Darryl Janmaat, a 21st-century Frank Spencer (kids, ask your parents) who should probably be kept in bubblewrap between fixtures, and Britos and Holebas, who are liable to miss games every season for other reasons.

Our strikers aren’t scoring
Of the eight goals we’ve scored so far (including the League Cup tie against Bristol City), only one has come from a striker – and that was Stefano Okaka, who didn’t even make the bench yesterday. While it’s nice to see goals coming from all areas of the pitch, a team needs its strikers to be scoring – and the strikers need to score, to keep their confidence high.

Our creative players make bad decisions
We really should have scored five or six goals yesterday. Particularly late in the game, when Southampton were chasing the game, we had several breaks that should have ended with the ball in the back of the net, if Richarlison or Carillo in particular had had the sense to pick out a teammate rather than going for glory.

It’s a tricky one, of course. You buy creative players like that for their ability – but they also need enough of a footballing brain to know when a quick pass or cross is more likely to result in a goal than trying to dribble round the entire defence, or shoot from 30 yards out.

Our Head Coach won’t wave to the fans
Seriously, Marco, what’s your problem?

Match report

“Showing that he’d learned the lessons from the previous week, Jokanovic switched to a 3-5-2 formation which gave Paredes and Anya more licence to get forward without having to worry so much about their defensive duties. The inclusion of Vydra and Munari – controversially left out against Derby – and the return from injury of Abdi and Angella gave the Hornets a much stronger spine.

“The changes took effect from the start, with Watford tearing forward at every opportunity. Throughout the game, Anya in particular was regularly found with diagonal passes, giving him the opportunity to get the ball in the area. Paredes too repeatedly made probing runs, while the interplay between Deeney, Vydra and Adbi was, at times, reminiscent of the best moments of Zola’s season in charge. 

“As for Cardiff, they were on the back foot for most of the match, and restricted to just a handful of attempts on goal…”

Of course, this imaginary match report on yesterday’s proceedings omits two crucial details: that Cardiff scored in the first quarter of an hour, and that Watford failed to score at all. But my intention (apart from to confuse future readers of this blog) is to demonstrate that, in most respects, this was a dominant Watford performance that, on another day, might well have resulted in a comfortable victory.

It is, of course, the fact that this is the fourth defeat in a row that is causing all the angst on social media, websites, local radio and all the other channels where the only reaction that is valued is a knee-jerk one. If this had been the game after the 3-1 win over Millwall, no one would be complaining too much. Sure, we should have won, but these things happen: a silly defensive error gives the opposition the chance to shut up shop, and when they’ve got one of the best goalkeepers in the country, there’s always a chance they’ll get away with it.

So, a bit of perspective. Jokanovic played what many Watford fans would regard as the best team available to him (though I can’t help feeling sorry for Fernando Forestieri, a rare light in the darkness against Derby and then dropped to the bench against Cardiff), they played pretty well overall and lost 1-0. It happens. It’s not a sacking offence – particularly for a man who’s been in charge for about five minutes. So let’s all take a deep breath and look forward to Craven Cottage on Friday (the only Championship fixture I can walk to from my house).