By Johnny Brick
Three years ago Martin Samuel wrote a piece in the Daily Mail that was highly critical of the Pozzo ownership of Udinese: “The dream is Alexis Sanchez, the reality is Steve Leo Beleck,” he said of the ‘buy them cheap, run the club with the profits’ style of owning Udinese, under Gino Pozzo’s control since 1986.
When in summer 2012, the Pozzos added Watford to their portfolio, also including Granada of Spain, several football critics said it was unfair that the rules meant playing staff could be loaned or transferred without a fee into Watford.
Hornets fans, like me, wondered what to expect, but, over time, have effusively praised the incoming international calibre of player: right-backs Allan Nyom and Juan Carlos ‘Choo-choo’ Paredes; Matej Vydra (now at Reading) and Miguel Layun (now at Porto); Ikechi Anya, now a Scottish international, and Almen Abdi, the ‘Professor’ who runs the midfield like Xavi or Iniesta; and, foremost of all, Odion Ighalo, he of the most goals scored in English league football in 2015 (30).
Yet, despite all these new arrivals, there have been key components in the rise of Watford from mid-table Championship plodders to the stallions of the Premier League.
Troy Deeney’s story will make a great bestselling footballer’s memoir when he gets round to writing it, but without his power, goals and captaincy in 2014/15 Watford would not have been promoted. (Without the club giving him a new deal after his stint in prison in 2012, Deeney would not be a Premier League player now.) Ditto Heurelho “H” Gomes, the Brazilian keeper whose celebrations shift fans’ eyeballs to the opposite goal, and experienced professionals Craig Cathcart and Ben Watson, key vertebrates in the backbone of Watford’s best XI.
Slavisa Jokanovic, helped by head of player recruitment Luke Dowling, came into the club in the autumn of 2014, with promotion the target.
The pair of them developed a team around a group of great professionals including Marco Motta and Watson, and introduced Ighalo as a challenger for Vydra’s shirt to give more competition to places for the XI.
The manager, eventually installed after illness to Oscar Garcia and a backtrack over the appointment of Billy McKinlay, was a stoic presence on the touchline.
The eight extra games in the Championship meant Jokanovic had to rotate his best XI to fit the Saturday-Tuesday fixture list. He managed his squad expertly, playing a 3-5-2 formation which did the business over a long 46-game league season, ending in an open-top bus tour of the town attended by thousands.
It matters little that Bournemouth won the league and Watford threw it away in the last seconds against Sheffield Wednesday. Watford were promoted, and could afford to dispense with Jokanovic, now in charge at Fulham, and appoint Quique Sanchez Flores, ‘QSF’.
The 50-year-old has pedigree. He played for Valencia and Real Madrid and has managed the likes of Valencia, Benfica, Atletico Madrid and Getafe. His godfather was the great Alfredo di Stefano, Survival was the target, but Watford have far exceeded expectations – and that will attract interest in their players.
Ighalo was prey during the January transfer window, with predators waving their chequebooks at the man whose earnings support family back home in Nigeria.
The new faces in Watford’s Premier League season include Jose Jurado, a player who has worked with QSF in the past, and Miguel Britos, a Uruguayan who has never played for his country.
Former loanee Adi Guediora signed permanently, as did the Swiss international Valon Behrami; yet both were kept out the team in the autumn by Watson and club record signing Etienne Capoue (from Spurs for a reported £6.3m).
Capoue always shows a great deal of skill and composure, while Watson was part of the Wigan team which kept defying expectations in their stay in the top tier.
Abdi, usually useful in the centre of the pitch, plays as a wide forward, allowing Troy Deeney to drop back and feed Ighalo.
Other new signings, such as the exciting and quick teenager Obbi Oulare and Dutch winger Stephen Berghuis, are benefitting from the Under-21 league.
The Under-21s are being coached by Harry Kewell, the Socceroo who has a great standing in English football, and young talent including Bernard Mensah, Dennon Lewis and Ogo Obi are playing regularly and learning from Kewell’s wisdom.
Before this season, there was only an under-18 side and a team used for local cups; young stars like Tommie Hoban and Sean Murray were in and around the first-team squad.
First-team wise, Roma’s Juan Iturbe came to Watford just before Christmas for a medical but the club could not guarantee him playing time with Anya, Jurado and Abdi excelling as wide midfielders.
The potential loan move, with a view to an £11m signing in the summer, was called off.
A year previously, the club was sending Lloyd Dyer and Lewis McGugan, proven Championship-calibre players, out on loan for the same reason, while fan favourite Vydra was displaced by Ighalo. So the young talent is catered for, the new guys are being integrated and a winning mentality has been formed.
Now that Gomes has been behind Cathcart for 18 months, they are at a decent level of understanding, and it is no surprise that the Deeney-Ighalo partnership is rivalled only by what is happening between Mesut Ozil and the Arsenal attackers and Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy at Leicester.
It is also satisfying that Watford have done so well without spending £100m on two wingers, as Manchester City did, or revitalised their forward line with two overpriced young stars of European football (Memphis and Martial) simply because they could.
Without superstar managers and superfluous sponsorship deals to drive growth in a global market, the limits on (and thus freedom of) clubs like Watford, Bournemouth and Leicester have led to a successful first half of the season.
All three clubs have sensible owners flush with their own and Sky’s cash, and trust the managers to do their job and get the best out of the playing staff available to them.
The global reach of the Premier League has put these exciting new brands (sorry to those who do not like teams referred to in such a way, but that’s how it is) in pubs and living rooms around the world, yet the humble nature of players like Troy Deeney (Watford), Riyad Mahrez (Leicester) and Harry Arter (Bournemouth) is a counterpoint to the riches of the top tier of players.
What happened to the Premier League by Christmas was unprecedented, but can be easily summed up with the following, using Watford as an example: happy workforce, good leadership, awesome results.
‘The Project’, to use the words of Watford’s CEO Scott Duxbury, is on course. Long may it continue.
