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.

Bored in Brighton

At the risk of sounding like a pundit, the month of February feels like it could define Watford’s season. Win the next three games and we will be ‘officially’ assured of Premier League status for another season and through to the FA Cup quarter-finals.

On the other hand, if we turn in three more performances like yesterday’s at Brighton, we’ll be out of the Cup and reduced to our usual late winter/early spring occupation of painfully inching towards that magic 40-point mark.

The Brighton game did feel like a throwback to the past few winters. Someone near me loudly suggested of the players that “they’re on the beach already”, and while I don’t believe that for a second, it was a worryingly lacklustre performance. Yes, Doucouré was missing, but we’re not really a one-man team, are we? Or perhaps we are; without him there was no forward thrust, no urgency, no cohesion.

Worse still, we couldn’t hold on to the ball; again and again, a Watford player ran into a cul-de-sac and was easily dispossessed, and we repeatedly lost the ball from our own throw-ins. Brighton were stronger and more direct, and probably deserved to win. It was lucky for us that their shooting was entertainingly wayward. And when they did get it right, Ben Foster was there to dig us out of trouble.

Of course, in the cold light of day (and having finally thawed out), there’s no reason to panic. After all, we came away with a point again a team with a solid home record. (Not that there’s any such thing as home advantage, of course.) But what is starting to irritate me is Javi’s refusal to drop players or make any changes to the team that aren’t forced by injury. This is a team where, with few exceptions, once you’re in, your place is guaranteed.

This wasn’t so much the case early in the season, when Javi tinkered with the strikers in particular, trying different variations on a one- and two-man attack. But since he settled on Deeney and Deulofeu as the front pair, that seems to be that – even though anyone with eyes to see can tell that Deulofeu, bless him, isn’t a natural striker, as the numerous one-on-ones he’s missed this season have demonstrated.

We all think we know better than the manager – and I’m no exception, so here goes: why not move Deulofeu out to the right wing (where he initially played when he joined us last year, with great success) and either (a) play Deeney on his own up front and move Will Hughes in behind him as an advanced midfielder, or (b) drop Hughes (who isn’t particularly convincing as a winger) and play Andre Gray alongside Deeney. Either of those options feels like it would produce a better balanced team that would be more likely to score goals.

But what do I know? Javi would doubtless point out that I don’t see the players in training, where Deulofeu’s dummies actually work (you know, that thing where, when the ball’s played towards him, he runs past his marker in the hope that the latter will take his eye off it, rather than actually competing for the ball) and Ken Sema is a worldbeater (rather than an honest trier who hasn’t got to grips with Premier League football yet).

So, a big month. We still have two possible routes into Europe, just about. But we’ve only won a single Premier League game since Christmas, and the draws are becoming increasingly frustrating. Next week’s game again you-know-who’s Everton would be a good place to start winning again.

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.

Captain courageous

For all the excellence of the Tales from the Vicarage Live event last Sunday, on the theme of captains, it was frustrating that host Adam Leventhal never asked the fundamental question: what does the captain of a football team actually do? I’ve been watching the game for nearly half a century and I’m still no closer to a definitive answer.

In other sports, such as cricket, the captain clearly plays a pivotal role. When India go out to bat at The Oval this morning, Joe Root will be responsible for deciding who bowls, when and how, and what fields are set for each batsman. Of course, much of this will have been discussed beforehand with the coach, but the captain still has to react to events on the field and adjust the plans accordingly.

But in football, this is the manager’s role, even if the only ways in which he can influence the game while it is in motion are by (a) making substitutions and (b) shouting and waving a lot. As for the captain, his role often seems largely ceremonial: leading the team out, taking part in the toss for ends. Indeed, some years ago, when there was much agonising in the press about who should be England captain (I think the current incumbent had just disgraced himself), the manager of Germany or France was quoted as saying that they couldn’t see what all the fuss was about: they simply gave the armband to the most senior player as a kind of recognition for long service.

Anyway, back at the Palace Theatre, the interviewees didn’t give many clues. To be fair, Les Taylor only captained the team once – even if was in the biggest game in the club’s history – and by his own admission, he only did so because the obvious candidates were all suspended or injured. As for Wilf Rostron, he was so reticent that it was hard to imagine him leading a class of schoolchildren across a road, let alone inspiring a group of professional sportsmen.

Neil Cox was a more obvious leader, though the main example of this was his role in the famous wage deferral that helped save the club from administration in 2002. This was the captain as shop steward, and perhaps this is how many see their role.

But then, earlier in the day, we’d seen a very different interpretation from Troy Deeney. It’s too simplistic to say that he singlehandedly turned the game round against Spurs, but he certainly had a major influence on it; thundering forward, barging opponents off the ball, scoring a magnificent goal. Was it before the next corner (the one that Craig Cathcart scored from) that Troy picked up a bottle of water from behind the goal and emptied it over his head, like a boxer between rounds? He has a sense of the theatre of the game like no other Watford player I can remember, and the gesture may have helped distract the Spurs defence from the threat of Cathcart.

When he’s on this kind of form, Troy’s performance is the textbook definition of leading by example. Other captains may not see the role that way, or may not be capable of dragging a team over the line the way Troy does, but it’s the best answer I’ve found so far to the question of what a captain does.

There’s always a but

A week after the end of the 2017-18 season and the sense of frustration I wrote about a few weeks ago still lingers. There were so many good things that were ultimately undermined by personalities and performances and circumstances and sheer bad luck. Here are five of my biggest buts (no sniggering at the back).

It’s great that we had 17 different scorers this season – it’s not a bad thing when there are multiple players who are capable of hitting the back of the net. But the fact that not one player managed double figures, and that our top scorer, with an underwhelming seven, was a midfielder (Doucouré) whose last goal came on January 13th, points to one of the key problems: neither Silva nor Gracia came up with a system or a formation that consistently created chances for our forwards. That’s the key issue that needs sorting out next season.

It’s great that Troy Deeney is still at our club and looks set to start his ninth season in August – a rare feat in modern football. His talismanic status is universally acknowledged, and I think he can still make an important contribution if Gracia can find a way to play to his strengths. But, let’s be honest, this wasn’t his greatest season, lack of goals aside. Missing seven games on bans for violent conduct didn’t help us, or him, given that he is, by his own admission, a player who needs a run of games to operate at his most effective.

It’s great that we signed a couple of hugely promising young English players, Nathaniel Chalobah and Will Hughes, who look set to have a big impact over the next couple of seasons if we can keep them fit. But the continuing lack of players coming through from our own Academy is disappointing. At least Mazzarri gave a few of them a runout, albeit mostly through necessity. This season, a handful of benchwarming stints by Michael Folivi, Carl Stewart and Joy Mokena – actually, they managed four between them, so not even a handful – is all we have to show for the club’s investment in youth. It’s rather depressing to think that Adrian Mariappa may turn out to be the last player we ever get to sing ‘He’s one of our own’ for.

It’s great that the 1881 have continued to improve the atmosphere at games this season with their banners and flags and confetti cannons (though a bit of warning might have been nice, lads – an old bloke near me nearly had a heart attack when they went off the first time). Sticking a drummer and a ‘conductor’ on the TV gantry outside the hospitality suite for a couple of games near the end of the season worked particularly well. But it’s disheartening to see so many empty seats at most games, suggesting that there a few thousand season ticket holders who aren’t actually that bothered about Watford, but can afford to spend hundreds of pounds a year to watch a handful of games that interest them. I know the club is looking into this, and it’s an emotive subject – you can’t force people to attend games. But all the talk of extending the ground seems a bit extraneous as long as we can’t fill it from week to week at the current capacity.

And finally, a personal bugbear. It’s great that the players still run out to ‘Z Cars’ – it’s part of the club’s heritage, something that is special and (almost) unique to us. But it’s bloody annoying that they cut it off once the teams have lined up and switch to some anonymous rubbish that is presumably the PL’s official anthem, or some such nonsense (I’m moderating my language here in case any minors are reading), thus depriving us of the chance to hear the tune in all its glory, complete with the bonkers clarinet (?) solo in the middle. I assume this is a PL rule – I noticed at the Bristol City FA Cup tie that ‘Z Cars’ got played in full – but that doesn’t make it any less irritating.

A game of frustration

Older readers may remember playing Frustration as a child. It was a fairly basic board game where you rolled a die and moved your pieces around a circuit; the first player to get all their pieces home was the winner. The twist was that, if another player landed on a spot that one of your pieces was occupying, yours got sent all the way back to the start, even if you were only one place from home. Hence the name of the game.

It’s as apt a metaphor as I can think of for Watford’s season, a season in which, again and again, a promising beginning has been undone and we’ve ended up back at square one. The games where we’ve played well, taken the lead and then ended up drawing or losing. The players who’ve lit up the pitch for a handful of matches and then picked up an injury that kept them out for months on end. And, of course, the head coach who looked like he might be the one to take Watford to the next level, only to have his head turned by a rival club and lose focus.

Yesterday’s opponents provided a timely reminder of how things could have been, like the ‘here’s what you could have won’ reveal on a TV gameshow. In a parallel universe, we could have been where Burnley are, sitting in 7th place, dreaming of winning a place in Europe.

Imagine for a moment that, throughout the season, we’d been able to field Chalobah, Cleverley and Doucouré in the centre of midfield, in front of a defence anchored by the strength and experience of Kaboul and Cathcart. Imagine we’d had access to the speed of Femenía and the skill of Hughes and Pereyra in every game. Imagine (and admittedly, this is a bit more of a stretch) that we’d managed to find a way to make a pairing of Deeney and Gray work up front. I know ‘what if’ is one of the most pointless phrases in the lexicon, but you can’t help wondering, can you?

The fact that, despite all these frustrations – all the leads chucked away and the absurdly lengthy absences through injury – we’re still sitting fairly comfortably in mid-table,almost makes it worse. So near, and yet so far.

Hopefully we’ll pick up a few more points before the season ends (although you can look at our remaining games and make a plausible case for us losing every one, given the form and/or desperation of the opposition), and then regroup in the summer, ready for the season we should have had this time round. But of course, somehow it never works out that way.

You’re my favourite

Any regular readers of this increasingly irregular blog will know that I’ve always had a favourite Watford player, chosen on purely subjective grounds at the start of each season. For most of the life of this blog, it was Lloyd Doyley, who I finally, reluctantly, replaced with Troy Deeney a couple of seasons ago (though I can’t actually find the post where I formally announced this – an unforgivable oversight on my part).

This season, the decision has been particularly tricky. For one thing, there was some doubt as to whether Troy would still be at the club when the transfer window closed, particularly after the arrival of Andre Gray. Indeed, on Thursday evening a tweet appeared in my timeline announcing that ‘Sky sources’ had learned that Troy was off to Newcastle for £32.5 million. Fortunately, like most such rumours, it turned out to be untrue, and Troy is still a Hornet.

But will he play? In Marco Silva’s preferred formation there’s only room for one centre-forward, and Gray is the man in possession. There’s a possibility that Troy could play in the centre of the three-man attacking midfield, but Tom Cleverly is doing well in that position, and Pereyra and Zarate will be in contention soon, too. I suspect that Troy may have to be content with appearances as an impact substitute for the time being.

So who are the alternatives? There are a few in this increasingly likeable Watford team: Cleverly, Chalobah, Pereyra if he can stay fit long enough to show us what he’s really capable of. But the standout for me is Abdoulaye Doucouré, who since the turn of the year has become the rock at the heart of Watford’s midfield. A wholehearted player and a true box-to-box midfielder, he was one of the few bright spots in the dismal second half of last season. Now that we’ve got Chalobah to play alongside him, complementing him perfectly, he’s becoming one of the key players in the team. The fact that the 1881 have devised a (magnificent) chant for him suggests that I’m far from alone in my admiration.

So, Troy or Abdoulaye? In the end, I’m sticking with Troy. He’s overcome a few obstacles in his career (to put it mildly), and every time he’s come out stronger and proved the doubters wrong. If Gray gets injured, or fails to find the scoresheet for a few games and shows signs of losing confidence, Troy could soon be back in the team, and you wouldn’t bet against him making the centre-forward spot his own again.

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.

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.

2015/16: highs and lows

So that’s that, then: 2015/16 is done and dusted, with a match that was the polar opposite of the first home game back in August, when Watford and West Brom looked as if they could play till Christmas without troubling the scorers. The baffling thing about today’s game is that it didn’t finish 5-5.

‘Baffling’ is a word that’s been used a lot in a Hornets context recently, whether to describe Quique’s selections and substitutions, or the decision to let him go. I’m not going to get into that now, though. In an attempt to make some sort of sense of an up-and-down season, this is my take on some of the highs and lows, both the big issues and (mainly, to be honest) the small stuff.

HIGH
We scored some great goals. The video rundown of the contenders for goal of the season before the Villa home game reminded me of just how good some of Iggy’s haul before Christmas were, and of course Guedioura’s thunderbolt in the FA Cup quarter-final has already gone down as one of the all-time great Watford goals...

LOW
... but a lot of players didn’t pull their weight when it came to goalscoring. Over the years, we’ve usually had at least one midfielder who could be relied on to chip in with 5-10 goals a season. Almen Abdi has fulfilled that role in recent seasons, and he did at least score two this year, making him our joint fourth highest goalscorer. That’s two more than Capoue, or Jurado, or Behrami, or Suarez – and frankly, that’s not good enough. Okay, the formation Quique settled on militated against midfielders finding themselves in the opposing penalty area too often, but even so, the standard of finishing we’ve seen from our midfield this season has been shockingly poor. Today’s game was a fine example, with around a dozen shots flying wide or over the bar. With a bit more precise execution of what should be a basic skill for a Premier League footballer, we could have won that game at a canter.

HIGH
We’ve got Troy Deeney, and that’s been absolutely central to our success this season. If you’re reading this blog, you don’t need me to explain any further. Suffice to say, he is the one player I dread being sold this summer...

LOW
... but, sadly, we no longer have Lloyd Doyley. Okay, I promise this is the last time I’ll go on about him, and realistically, he was on borrowed time once he picked up the neck injury that caused him to miss the end of last season and the start of this one. But seriously, given some of the Keystone Cops defending we’ve seen from Nyom, Parades and Cathcart at right back in the last couple of months, I can’t believe Lloyd would have performed any worse.

HIGH
We’ll still be a Premier League club next season, and that was the goal. So, job done…

LOW
... but we’ve taken on some of the unpleasant pretensions of the Premier League. I’m not talking about the silly pre-match rigmarole; the referee picking the ball up off a plinth, the hasty line-up under the sponsor’s banner and so on is all mandated by the PL, and we don’t have a say in the matter. But as far as I’m aware, no one stipulates that we have to deny the existence of other divisions by only reading out the half-time scores in the PL. This is something that often irks me at away grounds, and until comparatively recently, you could rely on hearing the scores from all four divisions of the English league, plus the Scottish Premier League, and occasionally even local non-league scores. Not this season, though. It smacks of arrogance to me – not to mention depriving us of the pleasure of cheering when Luton are behind.

HIGH
The Watford fans, led by the 1881, have been brilliant most of the season, and the flags and foil displays have been magnificent. (Well, so I’m told. I’m usually underneath them, so I only get to see blurry pictures on Twitter later on.) I’m genuinely proud of the send-off we gave Quique today...

LOW
... but there are always exceptions, not least the thousands who failed dismally to get behind the team at Wembley. But I was particularly baffled (that word again) by a twentysomething couple who were sat/stood in front of me at the league game at the Emirates. After about half an hour (at which stage we were only 1-0 down and not out of it by any means), I noticed them leaving their seats. A few minutes later I had to nip to the loo, and on my way I spotted the couple perched at a table in the concourse, pints of beer in front of them, watching Soccer Saturday on the TV. And this was in the middle of the match. Words fail me.

Matters arising

It’s been so long since I wrote anything on this blog that I feel a need to state my position on various burning topics related to Watford FC – mainly to remind myself what my position is.

The summer signings
Back in July, I expressed serious misgivings about the sheer number of new players arriving at the club. I wasn’t the only one, but that’s no excuse; clearly, I was wrong to be concerned. In my defence, I was assuming that the players who got us to the promised land would all be pushed out by these upstart newcomers, and that soon proved not to be the case. Deeney, Ighalo, Gomes, Cathcart, Watson, Abdi and Anya have all played most games, and that’s created a stable base for the likes of Britos, Aké, Capoue, Jurado and Nyom to establish themselves. So far, at least, it’s worked.

You could still argue that the transfer policy was flawed, since so many of the new signings have barely featured. Oularé and Berghuis are clearly works in progress, and Prödl and Behrami are useful squad members; but Arlauskis appears to have been merely a stopgap, judging by the recent recruitment of Pantilimon, while Holebas never wanted to be here, Diamanti doesn’t like being on the bench, and Ibarbo and Guedioura seem to have been signed purely to fill slots in the squad.

Of course, we’ve been lucky with injuries so far. In an alternative universe, some of the above-named would have played more of a role and their presence would have been amply justified.

The ones who were let go
I know this argument has long since died down, but for the record, I (reluctantly) acknowledge that the decisions to send various beloved squad members out on loan were largely correct. Most of them are currently doing the job you’d expect – but in the Championship, and without suggesting they could replicate it a level higher.

The one I really regret seeing go is Fernando Forestieri. I’d love to see him coming off the bench with 15 minutes of a game to go and confusing the hell out of Premier League defenders. We don’t have a player who can do that at the moment, and I wish we did. But the fact that Fernando is averaging a goal every two games at Sheffield Wednesday (11 in 21 starts so far) is probably the result of him being a regular starter, and that was never going to happen at Vicarage Road.

Jurado
Yes, he’s an impressively talented player, great with the ball at his feet and a skillful passer of the ball. He showed all this and more against Newcastle yesterday, and he’s getting better all the time. BUT his failure to score a single goal to date irks me. Someone playing the role he does really ought to be chipping in with five or six goals a season.

Perhaps the answer is simply that if he combined an eye for goal with his other talents, he’d be at a bigger club than Watford.

My favourite player
And finally... Regular readers have doubtless been on tenterhooks since August, when I announced it was time for me to choose a new favourite Watford player to replace Lloyd Doyley.

In the end, it won’t come as a surprise to anyone to learn that it’s got to be Troy Deeney. Almen Abdi has a special place in my heart (and I think there’s more to come from him), and Odion Ighalo is one of the most instinctive goalscorers we’ve ever seen in a yellow shirt. But Troy is the beating heart of this team, the one player whose absence would really worry me. He’s been central to the Pozzo project almost from day one (well, apart from that unfortunate incident and its consequences), and I fervently hope that he’ll stay and see it through to the next stage. Right now, it’s hard to imagine a Watford team without him.

Decision time

Regular readers of this blog (and judging by the statistics, there must be one or two of you who’ve been reading my ramblings for a while) will know that at this time every year, I observe a quaint little ritual. I open the debate over who will be my ‘official’ favourite Watford player – and then promptly close it again by declaring that it’s still Lloyd Doyley. Indeed, back in 2007, the third post I ever wrote did just that, and even then I said that he’d been my favourite “for a few years”.

But all good things come to an end. Lloyd is still at the club, of course, but suffering from a protracted absence due to injury. Even if he makes a full recovery, there’s a question mark over whether he’ll be offered a new contract. And even if he overcomes that hurdle, I can’t see him making many first-team appearances this season, unless we go on a decent run in one or both of the cups. I think it’s finally time to choose a new favourite.

If you’d asked me at the end of last season, I’d have said the choice was a fairly straightforward one, between the silk of Almen Abdi and the steel of Troy Deeney. But, having witnessed our new-look team in action for the first time on Saturday, there’s suddenly a raft of potential new candidates. Among those who caught my eye were the tireless running and dynamism of Allan Nyom at right back; the midfield mastery and dribbling skills of Etienne Capoue; the solidity of Sebastian Prödl at centre half; and the tricksiness of José Manuel Jurado in the attacking midfield role. I still have my misgivings about the sheer number of new players we’re trying to integrate into the team, but on the evidence of the West Brom game, there’s no reason to doubt the quality each individual brings.

Still, one swallow doesn’t make a summer and all that. I think I’ll wait till the transfer window closes and make my decision in early September, when I’ve had a bit more chance to assess the candidates. It’s a nice choice to have to make.

Telling tales

I haven’t checked, but I imagine BBC Sport’s summation of yesterday’s game was along the lines of ‘Promotion-chasing Watford thrash depleted Reading’. Every football match is a story that can be reduced to a one-line summary, of course – triumph for one side, disaster for the other, etc – but there’s always more to it than that, and this one was particularly rich in sub-plots.

The most unusual story (and thank goodness for that) was the one that led to the emotional shows of support for Nic Cruwys before and during the game; the players’ T-shirts, a giant banner, a moving round of applause during the 44th minute, more during the half-time interview with Ollie Floyd. Little that occurred during the match roused the crowd to such levels of passion.

That’s because of another odd story that probably had more bearing on the final result than any of the others; the scheduling of Reading’s FA Cup replay with Bradford on Monday evening, giving them a fixture sequence of Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday-Monday. In the circumstances, it wasn’t much of a surprise that, with only a couple of exceptions, the Reading line-up elicited a reaction of “Who?” from all but the most knowledgeable Hornets fans. Nor that they were no match for a Watford team coming into the game on a run of 6 wins from the past 8 games.

In that team, the big story last weekend was Fernando Forestieri’s altercation with Bakary Sako – like many Hornets, I’ve spent the week fending off the jeers of fans of other teams. So, given a rare chance to play pretty much an entire game, the big question was whether he would take it. And boy, did he. After his two exquisite assists, it felt like the whole crowd was willing him to score one for himself, and when he did, the catharsis was there for all to see. Fessi is back, and that can only be a good thing.

There are more stories, of course. Troy Deeney’s relentless progress towards becoming the first Watford player to score 20 goals three seasons running. Matty Vydra’s unerring touch when put through on goal. Heurelho Gomes’s alarming distribution. Daniel Tozser’s irritating habit of hitting simple passes approximately three times as hard as they need to be, creating problems out of nothing.

But the biggest one of all is the one we don’t know the ending to yet. Are Watford writing the story of a promotion-winning season? I have to say, it feels increasingly like they are. Slav has built a machine for winning football matches by any means necessary, using different formations and styles, showboating or slogging it out toe-to-toe with the opposition, with the end results ranging from extravagant tonkings to slim victories. It’s a real page-turner, that’s for sure.

Overtaken by events

Over the past couple of months, life has got in the way of my writing nonsense about Watford. My job has taken up an indecently large proportion of my time (as ever), and when I’ve come home from work, I’ve been helping my better half with some academic work (an 8,000-word dissertation, to be precise). During the summer, that wasn’t particularly an issue, but once the season started, I kept having a vague idea about writing something about the Hornets, only for my half-formed notion to be superceded by events.

And then it all went completely nuts. In the space of barely a week, we had the dispiriting League Cup defeat to Doncaster; Troy Deeney’s new contract; the astonishing end to the Huddersfield game; Beppe Sannino’s resignation; the appointment of Oscar Garcia; and the departure of Technical Director Gian Luca Nani. I’d barely formed an opinion about one event when the next one came along.

You’ll have worked out by now that I’m not one to rush to judgement. Years ago, I did a postgraduate journalism course where you could choose to specialise in ‘newspaper’ or ‘magazine’ journalism. Those who took the first option would quite literally chase an ambulance or fire engine up the street to see where it ended up and try to get a story out of it; those who took the second were sat in the pub watching them dash past, airily discussing the 3,000-word features they were going to write some time soon. I was, naturally, in the second group.

All this is a long-winded way of saying that if you’re looking for up-to-the-minute commentary on the latest goings-on at Vicarage Road, you’re better off going to Vital Watford, say. I’ll chip in when the mood takes me, but otherwise I’ll be going off on tangents, as per usual.

Since we’ve got this far, though some quick bullet points to bring us up to date:

• Troy’s new contract is a Very Good Thing in every way
• I feel sorry for Beppe, but if the stories I’ve read about the rifts between him and the players are true, then his departure is also (probably) a Good Thing
• Oscar Garcia seems like a decent appointment
• Lloyd Doyley is still my official Favourite Player, and the sooner he is reinstated in Watford’s defence, the more secure it will be

Confused? You will be

Yesterday afternoon, as I watched that most paradoxical of footballing events, a dull thrashing (one bloke near me actually nodded off towards the end of the first half), it occurred to me that this has been a highly contradictory and confusing season for Watford fans. Consider the following:

• We’ve scored six goals once, five once, four twice and three four times, and yet there have been long stretches when it was hard to see where the next score was going to come from.
• Conversely, we’ve conceded three or more goals eight times, yet the defence features some of our strongest players. (Angella, Cassetti, Doyley and Pudil will surely all feature strongly in the Player of the Season awards.)
• We’re not a remotely nasty or violent team, yet we’ve had four players sent off, and I read a couple of weeks ago that we’d been awarded more yellow cards than any other team in the Championship.
• In the autumn, we were invincible away, but couldn’t buy a win at home. Now the opposite is the case.

Obviously, some of these patterns can be attributed to the change of manager halfway through the season. The high turnover of players can’t help, either. Yesterday’s two debuts took the total number of players used this season up to 35 – that’s three whole teams worth, plus change. Poor Troy Deeney has had to try to forge a working partnership with Forestieri, Acuna, Fabbrini, Ranegie, Park and Anya, and life’s too short to try to list all the combinations of players who’ve been used in midfield.

Even here, there’s a contradiction: despite the riches of our squad, the 18 players who featured on the pitch and the bench against Barnsley actually picked themselves – thanks to injuries, suspensions and loans, the only other member of the first-team squad who was available for selection was third-choice goalie Gary Woods. Hence the naming of a bench featuring two midfielders and four central defenders. Against more demanding opposition, we could easily have come unstuck.

Perversely, it reminded me of the days when Sean Dyche was in charge – when money was so tight that the team more or less picked itself, and when promising youngsters got a chance to show what they could do in the first team, gaining valuable experience in the process. (In the current squad, Ross Jenkins still ranks third in the list of first-team appearances, even if he has been effectively declared a non-person by being denied a squad number.) Compare and contrast the fate of Uche Ikpeazu, so short of opportunities to play football that he’s been sent on loan to Crewe, who then complained that he’s not fit enough.

Where am I going with all this? I’m not entirely sure. Like I say, I’m confused. If there was an end to the relentless shuffling of the pack in sight, the emergence of a settled first team which then, carefully augmented in the close season, could make a decent challenge for promotion next year, then I’d be happy. But, as Matt Rowson pointed out recently over on BHaPPY, an equally likely scenario is that a large tranche of the current squad will disappear in the summer, to be replaced by a fresh batch of undoubtedly talented players who won’t necessarily adjust immediately to the championship. And then the whole confusing merry-go-round will start again.

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.

We’ve done it again

Done what? Well, beaten Ipswich, for one thing, though that’s hardly news. Today’s victory stretched our unbeaten run against them to 15 matches, of which we’ve won 12. Fair play to the large number of Ipswich fans who filled the away end, but did they really expect things to turn out any differently? Maybe it’s become a much-anticipated badge of honour, to be able to say “I was there when we beat Watford”, much as Hornets fans treasure the memory of being present on the occasion of Lloyd Doyley’s goal.

We’ve also passed the 52-point mark, which makes this officially Championship Survival Day (and no, I haven’t thought of a better name in the past 12 months). I know some have had us down as safe for a while – Jeff Stelling said as much a month ago on Soccer Saturday – but I’m not prepared to relax until those 52 points are in the bag. Seasons can have a funny way of spiralling out of control.

Amid the celebrations, I can’t help reflecting that Watford really haven’t played very well for most of this season. The last few home games in particular have made for painful viewing, with the wins against Burnley and Ipswich achieved by grit and determination rather than skill and guile, as if the players need the challenge of being a goal or two down before they’re prepared to really give it a go.

In this respect, Troy Deeney has become the emblematic Watford player of the season; not necessarily the best (though his technique is improving, as his goal today illustrated), but the one whose never stops running and harrying the opposition. It’s just a shame it seems to take his teammates until the middle of the second half most weeks before they follow his example.