EFL pundit Gab Sutton explains why Watford need more than just a change in the managerial department to progress in the Championship.
Reports suggest that Alessio Dionisi's position as Watford manager is under threat after the club fell to a fourth consecutive Championship defeat against Cardiff on Tuesday night, losing in humiliating 5-1 fashion.
Our resident EFL expert provides his thoughts on the current situation at Vicarage Road.
Watford need to put an ‘s’ on the end of the word ‘value’.
In terms of the accumulation of high-potential assets to sell for big money, Watford have done well.
They’ve just sold Nestory Irankunda to Sporting Lisbon for £15M, and if we’re talking about him as a forward linked with some of the biggest clubs in Europe come 2028, it would come as no surprise to me.
Similarly, they’ve just sold Imrân Louza, widely regarded as one of the top midfielders in the Championship, to Panathinaikos for £7M.
Despite those losses, in their current squad remain 11 permanently contracted players who are under 25, who have gained international recognition, at one stage or another, from a reasonable footballing nation ranked in the top 75 (eight in the top 25) – any one of them are a great season away from skyrocketing in value.
The problem, however, is that football isn’t the Hong Kong Stock Exchange: buy when they’re low, sell when they’re high.
It’s a living, breathing, sporting competition that requires so much more than simply collecting individual talent: it requires tactical balance, organization, humility, teamwork, endurance, experience and leadership, among other things, to come out on top.
When I look at how the Hornets have built their squad, they’ve got six wingers, four strikers and three number 10s, vs only three midfielders – which has led to situations like #10 Iker Bravo having to operate as part of a two-man midfield in the 4-0 home loss to Burnley.
Again, Bravo is a fantastic attacking midfielder, as he demonstrated in the opening day’s 2-1 victory over Southampton, but a deep-lying man he ain’t.
Watford have overinvested in enigmatic, mercurial players, some of whom individually, are capable of being one of the top performers in the Championship when the whole team’s built around of them but, collectively, can’t create an efficient unit that has all the ingredients to convert talent into trophies.
Meanwhile, they’ve underinvested in their defence, and have had to settle for second-rate goalkeepers, centre halves and defensive midfielders.
It might be harder to sell players in those positions for big money, because they don’t tend to demonstrate enough individuality to rack up the big numbers and really jump out to bigger clubs – although I would say even that’s changing as recruitment methods have become more advanced.
However, sometimes it’s worth it to sign a player that might not command an eight-figure fee in a couple of years, but will increase the chances of the club being in a higher league position in that timeframe instead.
The other issue at play is the power structure, as Tom Ince has spoken out in the media this week about the problems at the club.
He, too, cites a lack of character, experience and leadership among selected playing personnel, and feels one symptom and/or cause of that is lack of authority head coaches are given.
According to Ince, in his interview with 5Live, the players “knew the manager wasn’t important” and would “go straight to the owner” when they had issues with management.
There seems to be no respect for people in major, footballing leadership positions at Vicarage Road.
Gino Pozzo has probably implemented this strategy as a means to keep head coaches accountable, so that he can hear from the players, the horse’s mouth, how they find their methods and the direction the team is going in under their leadership.
That might solve the problem that may otherwise have been coaches peddling an overly optimistic version of events to ownership, or exaggerating mitigating factors for poor results, to hold onto their jobs when they might be responsible for poor result - but the problem that solution creates multiplies in scale.
Because the players have the easy option to complain to ownership at the first sign of hardship, it undermines management and destroys trust.
Any manager who goes there knows they’re not going to feel supported by ownership, and they know that if they give their players some tough love when needed, they’ll just go and complain to ownership, stunting any sort of meaningful progress.
As such, what you get is managers feeling so emasculated and demoralized, that they’re going to end up sleepwalking to work and collecting paycheques, rather than feeling energized and passionate about going to work everyday.
Initially, Watford fans supported the Pozzo regime, largely because of the outcome: they supported instant promotion challenges from the Championship thanks to co-ownership links with Granada, and they completed the job in 2014-15.
That team, however, had big characters preserving the culture: the positivity of Heurelho Gomes, the vocality of Troy Deeney, the leadership of Craig Cathcart, and others. Cultural architects.
This current group has none of those, or at least none who are also good enough for the Championship.
The Pozzo’s delivered five consecutive seasons in the top flight, then another in 2021-22, and were roundly supported during the successful period by a fanbase that recognized the efficiency of their methods at the time.
However, it’s clear that the sacking culture, and undermining of managers, has ultimately become corrosive and, ironically, it’s probably going to take another change – upstairs – for the club to move forwards.
