Constantly underappreciated and overlooked, Watford FC.

If you’re not a top six club, you’re not worth speaking about, at least that’s the mentality of the English media and pundits. And when they do start giving credit to the lesser clubs who are doing well, they act as like it’s some big discovery, when in reality fans of clubs who aren’t in the big six fan club, are already in touch with what they’re reporting. There’s also a backhanded compliment by most of the media, particularly when it comes to Watford. It’s the line “They’ve been through so many managers and players, but it works for them.” Like almost every club outside of Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal etc don’t have a high turnover of players and managers. I’ve said time and time again, what Watford do isn’t out of the ordinary, it’s very common on the continent.

The reasoning of this piece is because I feel like Watford are one of the most underappreciated clubs in not just English football, but world football. Whenever you hear Watford being spoken about on TV and Radio, it’s largely guess work and wrong, which Is frustrating as a fan because your club is being portrayed badly by influential people who put these opinions in the mind of the public who aren’t clued up on the ongoings at Watford. You just have to look at Jake Humphrey and Gary Linekar’s tweet when Watford decided to sack Marco Silva. Labelling it absurd and wrong whilst chucking in the “Watford wont get a manager as talented.” Fast forward eight months and Watford are in the top four with one of the best home records in the Premier League under Javi Gracia, a far more talented manager.

If you look at where the club was in 2012, and look at where it is now, you have to say that Gino Pozzo is nothing short of a genius. For my money, the smartest owner in the Premier League. Yes he’s made mistakes, but so Lord Kevlin when he miscalculated the age of Earth and Sun because he didn’t realise that different parts of the planets cooled at different rates, or Charles Darwin’s theory on natural selection. Am I putting Gino Pozzo on the same wavelength as Lord Kevlin and Charles Darwin? God no, Gino Pozzo is above them. From being in administration, to selling a player for £25m in Ighalo and £50m in Richarlison in the space of six years Is astonishing. Not just this, Pozzo, with a big help from Scott Duxbury, have expanded and improved Vicarage Road, employed the right people to have the best pitch in top flight football and heavily invested in players on the pitch.

One thing you cant criticise Watford for is having an imagination barrier. From Quique Sanchez Flores, to Walter Mazzarri, Marco Silva and now Javi Gracia. Watford have appointed managers out of the ordinary, with the only bad appointment being Walter Mazzarri. You can’t hold the club accountable for Marco Silva’s incompetence and lack of intelligence from October 2017-January 2018. I think it’s rather commendable that Watford haven’t fallen into the eye rolling appointments of Sam Allardyce, Alan Pardew and Mark Hughes. I mean seriously? if you have to sign one of these three up to manage your club then the incompetence at board level at these clubs is staggeringly bad. Watford have completely obliterated the theory that you need to know English football in order to be successful. They even made Gianfranco Zola look like a good coach when he finished third in the Championship under the first season ownership of the Pozzo family. Guess who got Watford promoted to the Premier League? Slavisa Jokanovic, who was sacked by Levski Sofia and Hercules after he was relegated to the third division in Spain. Yet Watford saw enough in his methods to think he was capable of getting the Hertfordshire club to the Premier League, which he was. Being able to spot a coach’s talents after being sacked by two very average clubs in Europe is a serious good talent. This isn’t by chance, Watford have three scouts that actively look around the World to see who can be their next Head Coach after the two year period that the club have set in place. The cycle is the coach will either move on to a better team or he’ll leave at the end of his contract, which has worked well so far. The thinking is that after two years, the players will be set in their ways and that a new face, a new idea will push the players to be even better.

Speaking of scouting, Watford possess the largest scouting network in world football. Obviously it’s shared with the older sister in Udinese, but both clubs have been very successful using this approach. For Watford, it’s unearthed some gems in Matej Vydra who couldn’t get a game at Club Brugge in the season prior to joining the club, was the Championship player of the season at the age of 20 for Watford. He went onto score 38 goals in 92 appearances for the club, before being sold to Derby for £12m. Almen Abdi, Watford player of the season in the 12/13 season and one of the best players to play for the club and the Championship has seen. Odion Ighalo, who couldn’t hit a barn door in Spain, scored 20 in his first season in English football, followed by scoring 15 in his first season in the Premier League, before being sold to Changchun Yatai for £25m and being one of the highest paid players in the world. Watford won’t spend big on a player, the highest transfer fee they’ve paid for a player is Andre Gray from Burnley for £14m, not the £18.5m that was reported. Which is good business considering he was only 26, English and just hit double figures in the Premier League.

Watford like to target players that are products of the best youth academies in the world. They will overspend rather overspend on a 17/18 year old with high potential rather than spend £20m on players that won’t potentially reach the same level of ability as the younger player. It’s a gamble but it’s paid off so far. For example, Watford will sign a player at a smaller club that has been a product of say La Masia and has developed into a good player, but has more potential to be unlocked. Gerard Deulofeu for £11m and Kiko Femenia, who a lot consider the best right-back outside the top six, on a free from Alaves. More examples are Abdoulaye Doucouré, who was signed from Rennes for £6m. An academy that has produced the likes of Ousmane Dembélé, Yoann Gourcuff, Sylvain Wiltord, Yacine Brahimi and Tiemoue Bakayoko and is now wanted by Spurs, Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United and PSG. Christian Kabasele arrived from Genk for £6m, a club who are notorious for developing players. Talents such as Kevin De Bruyne, Christian Benteke, Thibaut Courtois, Dennis Praet, Wilfred Ndidi, Leon Bailey, Kalidou Koulibaly, Yannick Carrasco and Sergej Milinković-Savić. Craig Cathcart, who in my opinion has been the best centre-back under the Pozzo family, arrived from Championship relegated Blackpool on a free, who previously had a poor loan at the club but was only 20 at the time. He was developed by Blackpool after being a Manchester United youth product, it’s a clever tactic deployed by Watford. Roberto Pereyra arrived from Juventus for £9m, NINE MILLION. Albeit he was a player that already had played under another Pozzo team in Udinese, a product of the River Plate academy. Even last season, Watfors signed Richarlison from Fluminense for £11m and South American ‘expert’ Tim Vickery said he was nowhere near ready for Premier League football. A year later, Richarlison joins Everton for £50m. Watford also have highly rated full backs in Adam Masina who came from Bologna for £4m and Marc Navarro from Espanyol for £2m, who’s also a product of Barcelona waiting in the wings to get their chance, same with Ken Sema who joined from Ostersund for £2m.

Watford are building a team for the future, which was always going to be the case. The difference between Watford and Chelsea when it comes to young players is that Watford want these kids to play for the first team, and then eventually sell to a bigger club for a large fee. Chelsea want to develop their players all around the world with no intention of them being in the first team. Watford have Isaac Success, Will Hughes and Nathaniel Chalobah who are first team players that have the potential to be £50m players, add that to the likes of Adalberto Penaranda, who’s close to getting his work permit, and was arguably player of the U20 World Cup in which Venezuela lost to England in the final. A couple of bad loans have stagnated his development, but he’s still only 21 and working under the best possible coach for him in Javi Gracia. Domingos Quina, who signed on deadline day from West Ham for £1m, a key player for Portugal youth in which he won the European Championship in 2016 at U17 level and the U19’s this summer. He also scored an absolute rocket and was superb on his debut against Reading in the Carabao Cup. Can play as a 6,8 or 10. Best way I can describe him is he’s like a young Jack Wilshere with pace. Pontus Dahlberg, heralded as the best young keeper to come out of Sweden since Andreas Isaksson, arrived for £3m from Goteborg, already having best young player in Sweden and a full international cap to his name. Finally, Ben Wilmot, arrived from Stevenage for £1m and was one of the standout players in Pre season and who was also superb in his debut against Reading. Very much in the mould of John Stones, I have no doubt that this player will be a Watford regular by the end of next season and will have big clubs after him in the next three years.

Even players who are not currently at the club that Watford have signed are getting raving reviews. Players such as Dodi Lukebakio, who was a £4m signing from Anderlecht in January and made one appearance from the bench against West Ham, joined Bundesliga side Fortuna Dusseldorf in the summer, after peppering them in pre season for Watford. He scored the winner against Hoffenheim on his league debut and now Dortmund are interested in him. Cucho Hernandez, a 17 year old Colombian at the time, joined the Pozzo network in 2017 for £1m from Deportivo Pereira and has skyrocketed into one of the best young players in the world and likened to Sergio Aguero. He’s developed immensely since spending last season and this season on loan at Huesca in Spain in which he was a key factor in getting them promoted to La Liga. He’s already scored 45 goals in 114 first team games at the age of 19 with Watford already rejecting £30m proposals from Barcelona. 18 year-old Filip Stuparevic, dubbed the Serbian Robin van Persie, will arrive at Watford in January from Serbian club Vozsovac. Watford fought off competition from Juventus and Valencia to get his signature. He’s already played 47 times for the first team of Vozsovac and boasts a superb scoring record for the Serbian youth teams, scoring 23 goals in 35 games. Watford will also complete the signing of 17-year old Fluminense striker Joao Pedro for £3m  in the coming days, but won’t arrive until either January or summer of 2020. The Brazilian is the top scorer in the U17 division with 25 goals, 11 more than Botafogo’s Marcello.

So to conclude, Watford are building something special. They have many players on their books that have potential world class ability and already have first team players that could start for a top six Premier League team. Don’t be surprised to see Watford comfortably being the best of the rest for years to come, and with a bit of luck, closing the gap of the sixth best team. Best thing about what Watford are doing is that it’s all down to scouting, rather than chucking large sums of money at average at best players. *Cough* Everton, *Cough* West Ham. Shall we stop sleeping on the work Watford are doing and change the narrative that they’re a poorly ran club to a club that have serious ambition and potential to be the best it can be. Actually do some research into the smaller teams, and you’ll find that in Watford’s case, every staff member is pulling in the right direction, every detail is worked on to the point where it’s perfection. You may look from the outside and think its a method In madness, but that’s not the case, its a long puzzle that Watford are slowly but surely putting together. It’s only madness if you don’t understand it.