20 Premier League Previews in Twenty-Ish Days: Watford
Stadium: Vicarage Road Stadium (capacity: 21,577)
Manager: Quique Flores (first season)
2014-15 Record: 89 points (27-8-11), second place in the Sky Bet Championship (promoted)
Give Watford credit. They have not lacked excitement this off-season, and even last season as they earned promotion back to the Premier League.
The Hornets employed three full-time managers in the 2014-15 season: Beppe Sannino, Oscar Garcia and finally Slaviša Jokanović. However, none of these men are currently in charge. Jokanović led Watford for the majority of last season, but resigned this summer when he couldn’t come to terms on a new contract with the club.
In keeping with their recent pattern of managerial choices, Watford brought in Spaniard Quique Flores who won the Europa League in 2010 with Atlético Madrid. Flores also managed Al-Ahli and Al-Ain in the United Arab Emirates Pro League. He took over at Getafe in the Spanish La Liga this past January, but resigned citing personal reasons after less than two months.
New Arrivals: Étienne Capoue — holding midfield (Tottenham Hotspur), Matěj Vydra — forward (Udinese), Valon Behrami — midfielder (Hamburger SV), José Holebas — midfielder (Roma), Sebastian Prödl — defender (Werder Bremen), Giedrius Arlauskis — goalkeeper (Steaua Bucharest), Allan Nyom — defender (Udinese).
Even if the coming season ends in relegation, you can’t accuse Watford of being too attached to their roster from the previous season. The previous second placed Championship team, Burnley, was steadfastly committed to their roster and it ended in a 19th place finish and quick relegation from the Premier League; Watford clearly are not interested in a similar fate.
The only player from the English leagues the Hornets signed, Frenchman Étienne Capoue, appeared only occasionally for Tottenham (24 Premier League appearances in two seasons). But, Capoue did have a successful run at Ligue 1 side, Toulouse, from 2007-13.
One of the names on that new arrivals list: Matěj Vydra, is hardly a “new” face around Vicarage Road. After all, Vydra made 83 appearances and scored 36 goals in two separate loan stints from his Italian parent club, Udinese, in 2012-13 and 2014-15. Sandwiched between those loans, Vydra scored three goals in 23 appearances in the Premier League during a season-long loan at West Brom in 2013-14.
Given Watford’s Italian ownership and ties to Serie A club, Udinese, it is not a surprise that three of the seven new arrivals have come from Italy. Although it’s worth noting that the Hornets did bring in Swiss international midfielder, Valon Behrami, and defender, Sebastian Prödl, from the German Bundesliga.
While none of these signings are absurdly expensive, it is an awful lot of new faces. Some food for thought: two of the three teams relegated from the Premier League last season, Hull City and QPR, brought in a lot of new faces and it backfired.
Familiar Faces: Heurelho Gomes — goalkeeper (15 clean sheets in 44 appearances), Troy Deeney — forward (21 goals in 42 appearances), Odion Ighalo — forward (20 goals in 35 appearances), Juan Carlos Paredes — defender (39 appearances).
Watford permanently signing Vydra shows club management believes in the Vydra-Deeney-Ighalo “three-headed monster” that accounted for 57 of their 91 goals last season.
Deeney was named the club captain at the start of the 2014-15 season and has proven, if nothing else, to be a consistent goal-scorer in the Championship, netting 64 goals in the past three seasons. Ighalo, a Nigerian international and one of the club’s many former Udinese products, also scored 17 goals last season.
There is not much English Premier League experience on the Hornets roster currently. As mentioned previously, the club has tried to fix this by signing players with top flight experience in Germany and Italy and the roster isn’t totally devoid of experience.
Heurelho Gomes has by far the most experience, with 97 total appearances during his time as goalkeeper at Tottenham Hotspur. The highlight of Gomes’ time there was a 1-0 victory over Manchester City, which helped seal the Lilywhites’ first ever appearance in the Champions League.
Also, defender, Craig Cathcart, made 30 appearances for Blackpool in their lone Premier League season in 2010-11.
There is still plenty of experience returning from last year’s squad. One loss is Hungarian midfielder, Dániel Tőzsér, who made 45 appearances as a loanee from Serie A side, Parma, but returned to his parent club one year into a two-year loan deal during the off-season.
The defence returns two key contributors in Juan Carlos Paredes and Gabriele Angella, who both started 32 games in 2014-15. In addition, another of Watford’s many former Udinese products: Swiss attacking midfielder, Almen Abdi, returns after making 32 starts a year ago.
Watford’s most recent contest was a 2-0 friendly victory on Saturday over recently-relegated German second division side, SC Paderborn 07. If Hornets fans can glean any hope from this result it is that Ighalo and Vydra were the two goal scorers.
Completely Unscientific/Somewhat Unbiased Predicted Finish: 20th place
There’s no fool proof, magic formula for ensuring Premier League survival, other than being a team that’s relatively difficult to score against. That’s how Tony Pulis and Sam Allardyce have guided four different clubs recently to Premier League survival, while playing thoroughly uninteresting football.
I think to some extent the teams that win the Championship play-off are better suited to the rigors of the Premier League. The pressure of playing three games that will drastically change the outlook of a club’s future prepares them for the pressures of playing games in the middle of a relegation “dogfight” the next season. To date, three of the last four teams who won the Championship play-off (West Ham, Crystal Palace, and Swansea City) are still in the Premier League.
There is not much established Premier League experience on the roster and this is Quique Flores’ first ever managerial stint with an English club. Some things are universal when it comes to managing men and football strategy, but I would have reservations about a manager who is a complete neophyte to the English game trying to guide a club to survival.
I think it would have also behoved club management to go after a proven Premier League goal-scorer instead of gambling that Vydra, Deeney and Ighalo will be able to score enough goals to lead the Hornets to survival. After all, the only top flight experiences the trio has are Vydra’s largely unsuccessful loan stint at West Brom and a handful of Serie A appearances by Ighalo. The rest of the roster isn’t that much more experienced either, although, I like that a lot of this summer’s new signings have top flight experience of some kind.
Another thing I like is the experience of a keeper like Gomes. Granted, he eventually got replaced at Tottenham, but Gomes is as good as any keeper from a newly-promoted team in recent memory. If he’s anywhere near his previous form it will be invaluable to the Hornets chances for Premier League survival.
The Hornets played an entertaining, attacking style last season. They ended up with 91 goals, which was second best in the Championship, behind league-winner, Bournemouth. Believe it or not this concerns me; that is not a sustainable style to stay up in the Premier League. Even optimistic Hornet supporters should not expect their side win a bunch of high-scoring affairs against Arsenal, Manchester United, Chelsea, or even the likes of Tottenham and Southampton.
Most importantly, Quique Flores needs to find the balance between getting the best 11 men on the field and not changing too much from what was a very good side last year. Premier League experience is valuable, but changing too much even in the name of ‘experience’ can be disastrous.
I just don’t see Watford having any of the ingredients necessary to stay up in the Premier League. Now, I understand that a club with ties to Italy and Spain is going to stay in its comfort zone, but why ignore some of the common elements among the teams that have been in Watford’s position?
If the Hornets do manage to stay up, then club owner Gino Pozza will be whistling Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” to himself for a while.
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