Watford had such a promising start to their Premier League life after being promoted two seasons ago.
After 18 games of the 2015/16 season they were 7th in the table level on points with Manchester United, and were one of the surprises of the season. Obviously behind Leicester.
At the end of that season Quique Sanchez Flores was sacked after comfortably finishing mid table and getting to the semi-finals of the FA Cup, much to the surprise of neutral fans and pundits across the country, except Watford fans.
As a Watford fan I was, and still am, asked ‘what more can you expect from Flores/Mazzarri? He did exactly what his objectives said’.
So I am going to breakdown every reason I think the fans of the club have to be so dissatisfied with not just Mazzarri, but the last few seasons in the Premier League.
The terrible brand of football and managers
During the season the club was promoted, they scored 91 goals, just under 2 goals every game. On the 7th of October current Fulham coach Slavisa Jokanovic was manager.
Jokanovic quickly turned into a fan favorite, playing attractive counter attacking football. Players like Matej Vydra and Odion Ighalo started scoring at will.
Then after the season ended Jokanovic wasn’t offered a new contract as it is believed he asked for a huge wage increase which the owners rejected.
Sanchez Flores took over and 15 new players arrived as well, meaning a lot of players who got the club up had to leave. Players like Fernando Forestieri and Vydra were allowed to leave, the latter only on loan. Which to this day still baffles me.
Watford were known by football fans as the counter attacking team, the small team who play exciting football and no matter what will try to outscore the opposition. Vydra was the perfect player for that style of football.
Even though he had a poor spell at West Brom, that doesn’t take away from the fact he has been one of the best strikers the club has ever had, in my memory Vydra has been the best finisher I have seen play for the hornets, but was never given a chance at the highest level.
The Flores turning point
Under Flores that all changed. Negative football started to be played, and fans started getting bored going to games.
The team shape and style of was similar to that of West Brom. Just a side trying not to get beat, and if the chance comes take it.
Due to the dull football, fans started making their voices heard.
This gave pundits the chance to make fun of Watford fans, criticizing them for being unhappy even though they were comfortably safe from relegation, instead of looking into the situation.
This season is even worse. The style of football and arguably one of the worst squads in the league, will make them favorites to drop to the Championship next season.
Walter Mazzarri has made himself into one of the most disliked managers in the Premier League of recent memory.
The fact he has been at the club for nearly a year and still can’t speak a word of English, doesn’t connect with the fans anywhere near as well as former managers such as Jokanovic, Flores and even Gianfranco Zola did, and his negative tactics is making a poor relationship with the fans which seems beyond repair.
The players
Even though I could talk about how poor Mazzarri has been for hours, the players have certainly not helped him out one bit.
Club legend and captain Troy Deeney has been embarrassing at points this season, which has got him dropped from a few games recently, something that couldn’t even have been thought of in the past few seasons.
There are only a handful players in the squad that I think are truly Premier League quality.
The owners have to do what they’ve done for the last couple of seasons and sign 10-15 new players and get rid of players who either aren’t good enough or are not willing to work hard.
Miguel Britos, Younes Kaboul, Nordin Amrabat, Etienne Capoue and many more have gone missing far too many times this season and they need to buck their ideas up or they could be leaving the club very soon.
Written by Andy Doorbar
Follow Andy on Twitter @WatfordAndy
Like O-Posts on Facebook
You can also follow O-Posts on Twitter @OPosts