This is no April’s joke. As many of you will know, Luton Football Club were widely expected to win today’s match against Watford at Kenilworth Road, and predictably that became true with a 2-0 defeat of the Hornets.
It is no longer in doubt that 11th in Division 1 Watford have no hope of reaching the play-offs to be promoted back to the top-notch Premiership League. Their best bet is not to risk lurching into further relegation and humility.
The fans are exasperated with the performance of Watford. Even if they place it in the context that the team has known many highs and lows since the 1970s, there can be little doubt that the current performance, since being relegated to Division 1 at the end of the 2020 season, is starting to look lasting rather than a roller-coaster ride of fun and tears.
Gino Pozzo is the owner of Watford FC since 2012 and while he had some highlights, like the FA Cup Final in 2019, his tenure looks set to be best remembered for 16 managers he has hired and fired in that decade and the inability to lift the squad out of Division 1 and back into the top flight Premiership after two successive years down.
A string of losses makes every Watford fan ask how many more punch blows can the Watford cushion take?
Pozzo is no doubt passionate about Watford doing well. And he has a business model that, on occasions, served him, and the team, well. He buys upcoming players on the cheap, “fattens” them up and sells them on for a tidy profit. For a team in Division 2 that might sound like an attractive offer. But for a top flight team who in the Premiership commanded revenues worth £100m do we need that? Or do we need to instil a sense of team into the…team?
Justin Allen recently wrote a spot-on assessment of the trials at Watford for The Sun newspaper.
The reporter also paid homage to the technically strong Watford. This was again borne out at today’s match. Watford had a commanding 61% possession of the ball against Luton. A 73% accurate pass rate versus 59% for Luton. But all laid to waste if you cannot convert a game into at least a draw.
Pundits now question whether the problem at Watford is not the revolving door of managers but Pozzo himself. And with two seasons out of the Premiership, how long before Pozzo wears his business hat again and throws off the Watford scarf? How long will the money last? Two seasons out means those half a dozen years of landing £100m annually are over. And if the business hat dictates, Pozzo might sell up.
But the question we all now want answered the most is – at what point will a frustrated Sir Elton John who first became chairman in 1976 and more recently became honorary life president, step in? Last July, at concerts at Vicarage Road, Elton declared he wanted to “get his hands dirty again” with Watford. As his world tour ends this summer, there may be an outlet for this emotion and we rather hope he will come off the proverbial terrace fence and take to task management of the proud club. Come on Watford!
