PUNCH-DRUNK
A term used to describe someone behaving in a bewildered, confused, or dazed manner from having been physically, mentally or emotionally punched.
Yes, Watford are indeed Punch-Drunk. I think the majority of us feel like the club are on the ropes, repeatedly getting hit, trying to throw back; some are landing, but most aren’t; and this season looks likely to be the final knockout. Collectively, I think we can rule out Watford getting promotion from the Championship this season; unless Slaven Bilić can take the club on a winning streak, something which hasn’t happened all season. Given the team are in 8th place, we’re also now relying on other teams to drop points. It’s not impossible no, but it feels very unlikely at this current moment. Squad value of €127.05m according to Transfermarkt, which is the highest in the division, €25m more than Norwich; as well as a top 2 wage budget, to be sitting outside the playoffs with 12 games to go, as well as never being in consideration for the top 2, is some doing. Made to look worse when the head-coach who was sacked by the club is sitting 2 places above you and 4 points clear at arch rivals Luton Town. And that’s not even taking into consideration what CEO Scott Duxbury said pre season that the aim was to win the league — Just the 26 points off that, cheers Scott. There’s no point going over our recent seasons under the Pozzo ownership, and how many things they’ve got wrong, and still continue to get wrong; It’s time to look forward and try and get things back on track, and there are signs of that behind the scenes with the appointments of Ben Manga, Helena Costa, José Viñas, Björn Andersohn, João Costa and Raffael Tonello. It’s up to Gino now to let them work and hopefully bring a long term and sustainable model back to the club.
Identity is a complex and developing concept. Watford are often labelled as a club with no identity, and that trickles down from the very top, to the playing field every week. But Watford as a football club are a contradiction; the identity of the club is that it doesn’t have one, and it’s a very strong one. Having a strong sense of selfhood can be very dangerous, and in this case it is. It’s being wedded to one way of thinking, one way of operating — and that can have a detrimental effect in the now and in the future; that strong sense of identity can encourage close-mindedness and neglection of what the actual issues are and how to combat them; and that’s the problem with Watford. What Ben Manga has to do now is bring a sense of realism back, bring an open mind that not everything has to be operated in a certain way. Evolve, adapt, and act accordingly to the style you want to create at Watford. Everything starts at the top; if everyone knows and understands what they’re doing — It’ll filter down into the playing staff, and results will follow.
The Moneyball ideology in articles, threads on Twitter, fans speaking to one another about how their club should operate has been done to death. But Watford HAVE to be smart now with the somewhat precarious financial situation — which would be aided by an American Investment firm who are looking to put money into Udinese and Watford; as well as running another club in Spain with the Pozzo’s. Those talks will begin again and look to be finalised after both seasons in England and Italy have commenced according to the local paper in Udine. The squad next season that Watford will have, will be a considerably weaker one than what we have now which is outside the playoffs — Joao Pedro and Ismaila Sarr are certain to leave, with potentially Imran Louza too, but I have confidence the latter will stay for one more season. But what does that entail? How do Watford balance the act of building a long term and sustainable future, whilst also needing promotion? as Moneyball says, you buy wins. There’s a misconception within the film that football clubs interpret in a sense that you can only buy young, and flip for the profit in future, based on data analysis; I find that wrong — It’s about being smart, regardless of age, 18 or 34, if you’re the best fit for what we need for this specific goal in mind, pull the trigger. So if that means giving Craig Cathcart another one-year contract extension over signing an up and coming prodigy, who might be amazing in three-years time, but not ready now for a promotion charge, then so be it; the club will have limited funds, despite the potential of £40m+ coming in for the sales of Pedro and Sarr. The squad next season is looking extremely light, and it has to be made right; because Watford are running out of saleable assets to fall back on.
The clubs appointments over the last few seasons have been quite lazy. Tribalism will make you give them the benefit of the doubt, but the appointment of Claudio Ranieri was lazy, the appointment of Roy Hodgson was lazy, and the appointment of Slaven Bilić was lazy. If your main criteria of a hiring is ‘They’ve done it before, so they’ll do it again’ chances are it’s not going to go well, or as smoothly as you think it would. Bilić did it at West Brom, but that was four seasons ago, football moves on quickly. Not to mention the form from December; West Brom in the second half of the season (23 games-46 games) had them sitting in 11th on 33 points. Performances fell off a cliff pretty quickly if The Athletic article can be believed. In fact if you focus in on Bilić last 46 games in the Championship; he’s won 17, drew 14 and lost 15; with a +15 goal difference. Over a season that would roughly have you between 9th and 10th. He’s just not won many games in the last four seasons, including his other stints in China and Saudi Arabia. Every fan wants their club to do well, and we all have our opinions on how things should be done — Watford could get promoted this season and my opinion on him being an outdated head coach would make me look silly — which I’m completely fine with.
It’s conceivable that Bilić could still be here next season given his contract has another year left, but all the noises seem to suggest he won’t be here, but if not Bilić.. who? As I alluded to earlier, Watford need to buy wins, and that starts with the style of football you want your team to play. It also depends where you view the squad you’ve assembled, playoff chasing, or title winning? those two are vastly different. If you want to win the league, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the top three in the Championship, are the one’s who’s teams dominate territory in the final third. In fact that’s the case throughout English football — there’s a few anomalies like Stevenage, and to an extent Swansea. The Head Coaches I’ve put forward above all play different football and take different approaches, but the outcome is the same throughout their teams; they dominate territorially and they win the ball back quickly. They don’t come without their flaws, there’s defensive mishaps and It can be risky at times, but the reward outweighs the risk. Football goes in cycles, and the main style right now is an interpretation of positionalism and relationism which co-exist depending on which outlook you take. If you want to read more in depth conversation on that type of football and philosophical outlook — I’d recommend following Jamie Hamilton (@stirling_j).
Finally, I want to touch on the term entitlement. This topic gets brought up quite a lot after another meh season. The quote that often gets chucked around is from the late great Graham Taylor — “Watford being a top 30 team is an achievement.” At it’s current time that would ring true, but it wipes away all context in the now. With the budget Watford now have, and the players, money and wages spent in the last decade; Watford should be a top 22 team. Humans are conditioned to think a certain way when the actions of their club determine how they should behave. Watford sacked Rob Edwards after 10 games for Slaven Bilić because they felt the team was good enough to win the league. That’s not entitlement, that’s holding the club accountable for their words and actions. Their seems to be a certain way to support a team, but if everyone did that, fans would get taken the piss out of by the owners. Anyone who want’s and expects better is seen, or can be seen as negative and too demanding (good quote Henry) — we can all channel and say our thoughts better at times, but football is an emotional and reactionary sport, it’s what makes it the most frustrating but wonderful sport in the world. Finally, results based analysis is bad. Thanks for reading!