Watford deserve relegation; but still have a chance of survival if Roy Hodgson is sacked

Before I get stuck into this, the caveat on my opinion on Roy Hodgson has to come via the squad being bad, the owners not knowing what they’re doing the last three or so years, and not learning their lessons that they spouted in July or whenever it was. Watford are often criticised within media for the hire and fire approach, and up until the 19/20 season; the ridicule was misplaced. However, It’s almost like Gino Pozzo has fell into the trap of becoming the stereotype surrounding him, rather than doing what made him successful throughout his time at the club and parts of the successful Udinese team in the late 2000s and onwards.

Going into the season, there was concern from fans that Xisco Munoz wasn’t ready to take on the Premier League due to tactical deficiencies, whether that be in game or planning for a game. Majority of Watford’s wins were simply because we had the better team and of course, Ismaila Sarr. Now add those concerns to a squad that was weakened in the summer window with the sales of Will Hughes and Nathaniel Chalobah, the latter is debatable, but to me he’s better than Cleverley and Kucka. But the overriding point is they were replaced with quantity rather than quality, and ageing quantity for that matter. To nobody’s surprise, Xisco wasn’t the man to keep Watford in the Premier League, although looking back on it now, we probably were better off keeping him as there was a connection with the fans and players, whereas the latter two appointments didn’t/don’t want to be here from the start. In fairness to Ranieri, the performances did improve quite a lot, and we did pick up more points than Xisco did in his first 7 games, the problem was the the schedule at the time made it hard to pick up any momentum in terms of points. For the first few months under Ranieri, Watford were aggressive in the press and playing some exciting football, but it all went wrong at Brentford away when Troost-Ekong conceded a last minute penalty to lose the game 2-1, having been 1-0 up for 80 minutes.

Now onto the appointment of Roy Hodgson — which wasn’t a popular one to begin with. The issue I have with this is, there was a set opinion that this was a smart appointment, and I can’t understand why. Football is not just about league table, you have to look past that to fully understand the context of what was happening. Did Roy Hodgson keep Palace up when they lost their first 7 games? no, he came in after 4 league games, and lost the next 3 he took charge of. But the players he had at his disposal were above what they were performing at, he got them organised and did the bare minimum that generation of manager would do. However, the last two and a half seasons, Palace were consistently one of the worst teams in the Premier League; they may have finished clear of the drop, but their underlying numbers suggested something completely different; and you could see why the Crystal Palace fans weren’t happy, because the system Hodgson had in place, wasn’t sustainable over a longer period of time — what would have eventually happened is what happened with Bruce at Newcastle, constant bad performances being bailed out by a hugely over-performing goalkeeper and a forward player in ASM/Zaha picking them up enough points. Similar to Xisco at Watford, Palace only stayed up through having better players. As I mentioned about the underlying numbers; 19/20 season — Crystal Palace created the fewest open play chances in the division, conceded the 16th most, and an expected points total of 18th. 20/21 season — 19th for open play chances created, 18th for open play chances created and 18th for expected points. Whether you’re into data or not. what fans were seeing on the pitch, on top of the articles in the media, as well as Zaha saying Hodgson doesn’t coach attacking plays — Hodgson was making a better team worse than they were collectively (as you can see from the graphic below from Scott Willis)

What were Watford expecting to happen with this appointment? the sackings of the manager is fine, but the appointments afterwards have been nothing short of abysmal. Watford are one of, if not the worst team in the league talent wise, but that doesn’t mean they should go down, because every season teams stay up through having a very good manager, and even if Watford do have slightly less talent; it’s only marginal. Hodgson has somehow managed to make Watford a worse team overall than Ranieri and Xisco did. Completely wiped away any attacking play, still conceding a bucket loads of goals/chances and the performance levels have dropped lower than they did previously. Palace at home, Brighton at home, Wolves away are some of the worst performances from a manager in terms of set up I’ve seen. The constant picking of Tom Cleverley despite him being so far out of his depth is baffling, as well as not knowing the type of players he has at the club — saying Louza and Kayembe are the same type of player couldn’t be anymore wrong, as well as saying he didn’t know what the line-up was in Watford’s 4-1 win over Manchester United. Watford are a bad team, but we only have to finish 17th. Regarding who should be the next Watford head coach/manager/victim — that’s not really down to me. I’m one of the first to say I want stability, but that can wait until next season; as much as some of us would like to build for the Championship with a new man now, the reality is we are still mathematically well within the chances of survival, as mad as that sounds given the performances. But what Watford need is someone with modern ideas, that doesn’t leave the midfield exposed from ridiculous 1v1 pressing triggers that allows the opposition just to pass round and into the final third, or someone that stifles the goal scoring threat we have in wide areas. Ranieri had it partially correct when he basically set us up to go for it as the defence wasn’t good enough. Diego Martinez is the obvious candidate in all of this; he’s already been at the club in the summer and praised the facilities and the way the club operates, as well as being highly rated via his time at Granada; making a lesser team much better than they are — from the second tier of Spanish football to the Europa league in two seasons. Whether he’d come here is a different story, but the type of manager Watford should be going for is available and ready to work again.