{"id":575061,"date":"2020-12-20T14:46:25","date_gmt":"2020-12-20T19:46:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=575061"},"modified":"2020-12-20T14:46:25","modified_gmt":"2020-12-20T19:46:25","slug":"xisco-munoz-agrees-to-become-new-watford-manager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2020\/12\/20\/xisco-munoz-agrees-to-become-new-watford-manager\/","title":{"rendered":"Xisco Munoz Agrees to Become New Watford Manager"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?s=Watford\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Watford<\/a> are no strangers to hiring and firing managers and they have now appointed their fifth manager in just over 12 months as Xisco Munoz agrees terms to take over from <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2020\/12\/19\/vladimir-ivic-sacked-by-watford\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Vladimir Ivic<\/a> who was sacked at the weekend with Watford just four points away from second-placed <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?s=Bournemouth\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Bournemouth<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>Xisco Munoz Agrees Deal to Become New Watford Boss<\/h2>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">\ud83e\udd1d We are pleased to confirm the appointment of Xisco Mu\u00f1oz as Head Coach.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Watford Football Club (@WatfordFC) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WatfordFC\/status\/1340730151240409091?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">December 20, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>From Dinamo Tbilisi to Watford<\/h3>\n<p>The former <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?s=Dinamo+Tbilisi\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Dinamo Tbilisi<\/a> boss Xisco Munoz has agreed a deal to become the new manager at Vicarage road. Munoz played for <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?s=Valencia\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Valencia<\/a> and won the UEFA Cup as well as La Liga for Rafa Benitez who is said to have been a huge influence on the 40-year-old.<\/p>\n<p>Munoz has held coaching roles with <a href=\"https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/CF_Pobla_de_Mafumet\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pobla Mafumet<\/a> as well as Tbilisi. In August 2020 Munoz led Tbilisi to their second league title.<\/p>\n<h3>The Watford Manager Merry Go Round<\/h3>\n<p>The Pozzo family who also own <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?s=Udinese\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Udinese<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?s=Granada\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Granada<\/a> have a history of hiring and firing managers as if it is a habit they cannot get out of. Since taking over at Watford in 2010 they have gone through 13 managers. Nigel Pearson, Quique Sanchez Flores twice and Vladimir Ivic have all been through the ever-revolving doors of Vicarage Road.<\/p>\n<p>The Pozzo family are not known for patience and they will expect Munoz to hit the ground running and start to deliver results from the get-go. Despite his success in Georgia with Tbilisi, managing the Championship will be the biggest challenge of the young manager&#8217;s career.<\/p>\n<p>Will he steer Watford back to the Premier League or will he become yet another casualty of Watford\u2019s desire for instant success? The length of the contract has not yet been disclosed although the Watford owners are not known for issuing long term contracts. Munoz starts his Watford career with a home game against League leaders <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?s=Norwich+city\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Norwich City.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<br \/>\n<a id=\"ZNoFek5CSUhRnsQ-KEHW2w\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1228567020\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'ZNoFek5CSUhRnsQ-KEHW2w',sig:'uohWRa0WOIUddjM4aSe7JJQtl1zP358xMMhpZbscYAY=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1228567020',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Watford are no strangers to hiring and firing managers and they have now appointed their fifth manager in just over 12 months as Xisco Munoz agrees terms to take over from Vladimir Ivic who was sacked at the weekend with Watford just four points away from second-placed Bournemouth. Xisco Munoz Agrees Deal to Become New [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2488,"featured_media":575081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,33,32,30,25],"tags":[6862,7225,7224,7223,136,7222],"class_list":["post-575061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-championship","category-league-football","category-news","category-watford","tag-2020-21-championship","tag-dinamo-tbilisi","tag-manager-sack-race","tag-watford-manager","tag-world-football","tag-xisco-munoz"],"modified_by":"Tom Cunningham, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2488"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}