Despite Odion Ighalo and Troy Deeney misfiring Walter Mazzarri’s team are coping well but will want to improve on recent results at home to Crystal Palace
Last Christmas was a particularly sweet one for Watford’s supporters, who went into the festive period on the back of a four-game winning run that culminated in their finest result of the season, a 3-0 victory against Liverpool. As they pulled their crackers and donned their paper party hats the team was seventh in the Premier League and boasted perhaps the division’s most fearsome strike pairing: between them Odion Ighalo and Troy Deeney had scored 17 goals in as many games under the guidance of their dapper Spanish manager, Quique Sánchez Flores.
Meanwhile the players and coaches gathered as instructed at their hotel before the Boxing Day fixture against Chelsea. As they sat down to dinner only one man was missing: Flores had not turned up, having decided to spend the time with his children instead. It was not much of an example, and did not go unnoticed. Over the next few months this attitude was transmitted to some of the other senior players, who occasionally skipped training sessions without sanction. Others saw this, and the manager’s preference for picking the same team irrespective of performance either on the pitch or in training, and questioned their own need for punctuality and strenuous application. Though the team reached an FA Cup semi-final, losing 2-1 to Crystal Palace at Wembley, the 21 remaining league games would bring only four wins, as team morale and discipline gradually deteriorated. Flores departed at the season’s conclusion.
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