Roy Hodgson and Watford: A doomed marriage each side want to neglect

It was a fond farewell, whilst he returned to the scene of private disappointment. Roy Hodgson stated he was happy his final recreation was at Anfield, “one of many temples of soccer”, and bowed out a neighborhood hero, the Croydon bus driver’s son who had travelled the globe, returned to his native south London and saved his boyhood membership Crystal Palace up for 4 consecutive seasons. Arsenal gave him a guard of honour after they visited Palace. After 45 years in dugouts from Scandinavia and Switzerland to the San Siro and Selhurst Park, he had earned the correct to retire.

Besides the tributes final summer time have been untimely. Hodgson returned, administration’s addictive properties making certain he wanted one closing repair. Going to Watford was a mistake, for him and them alike. He has prolonged his file because the Premier League’s oldest ever supervisor. His closing recreation, at Stamford Bridge on Sunday, will come at 74 years, 9 months and 13 days. It’ll additionally include Watford lengthy since relegated, with indications that the strategies that served him properly within the Allsvenskan within the Nineteen Seventies have lastly stopped working, and that Roy has gone rogue.

Hodgson has spent his closing weeks in administration being irascible and tactless. Which, except your allegiances lie with Watford, has provided leisure. There was his lap of honour of Selhurst Park, getting the acclaim from Palace followers that he was denied in Covid instances, however then he forgot to acknowledge the Watford assist. He had contrived guilty the rivalry between the 2 golf equipment on the Hornets. He regarded disengaged on the day Watford’s destiny was sealed, making no substitutions in a show of passiveness, hiding behind sun shades he stated have been necessitated by shingles. He bluntly admitted he wouldn’t recognise his successor, Rob Edwards, whose achievements in getting Forest Inexperienced promoted from League Two had clearly not attracted his consideration.

He has an 11.8 per cent win fee, which is unlikely to enhance in opposition to Chelsea. His return of 0.52 factors per recreation means he might solely come third in Watford’s manager-of-the-year ballot. Except goalkeeper Ben Foster, a Hodgson loyalist from happier instances at West Bromwich Albion who argued no supervisor might have saved the Hornets, few appear to have a lot affection for him.

The sensation could also be mutual. That Hodgson has a solitary level at residence and bowed out at Vicarage Highway with a 5-1 defeat to Leicester might imply it’s simply as properly his final recreation is away. A few of his final squad might not miss him or vice versa. He appears to assume they’re overrated by his employers. “Maybe I’m left to replicate that among the gamers instructed to me as those who would resolve the membership’s parlous scenario weren’t, actually, capable of produce the performances that they’d been billed as being able to,” he wrote in his programme notes final week.

Ismaila Sarr, Josh King and Emmanuel Dennis had scored 18 league targets earlier than Hodgson’s January arrival; they solely have two, each from the Nigerian, since. He has didn’t get one of the best from any. He not less than engineered three clear sheets in his first six video games and Watford’s traditionally atrocious defensive file – no crew has conceded extra on their very own turf in a top-flight season within the final six many years – displays extra on others, and never merely as a result of their homeowners have lengthy proven an aversion to spending sizeable charges on defenders.

But when it underlines that this isn’t a Hodgson squad, this season has amounted to a hubristic failure of the Pozzo undertaking. The appointment of Edwards – the antithesis of many a Pozzo supervisor – suggests a recognition of such. Over their final two Premier League campaigns, the Hornets have been managed by seven males, one a caretaker, and received a mere 14 wins. The revolving door has led to the trapdoor.

Maybe, too, their switch coverage will not be fairly as impressed as they could assume. Dennis formed up as an excellent signing, King and Moussa Sissoko as tremendous ones, but the truth is Watford solely simply have extra factors than signings (23-19). Some have been futuristic, some might crop up in random Europa League runs in future seasons and Hassane Kamara received participant of the 12 months regardless of solely becoming a member of in January, however someplace alongside the road Watford forgot the ideas of team-building. They weren’t a aspect as a lot as 11 males, a few of whom knew one another’s names. Stripping a membership of continuity and id finally got here a price; is it any surprise Watford generally lacked spirit?

The concept that the gamers have been sufficiently good that they may drop in managers who would succeed within the quick time period has been disproved. Claudio Ranieri was a disastrous appointment and he and Hodgson – mixed age: 144 – appear in decline, however when solely one among Watford’s final 14 coaches has made it to 50 video games in cost, and none to 70, the elemental downside lies with the membership.

The homeowners can say the previous couple of years have been the second most profitable spell in Watford’s historical past however their final two within the Premier League have been dismal. It could be an exaggeration to say it has tarnished Hodgson’s legacy – a 46-year profession is sufficiently wealthy that Watford is merely an undignified footnote – however he ought to have stayed out of the fray, surveying their demise in indifferent vogue from his couch, not the technical space. If retirement beckons for him, Watford want a reset and a regime which is the alternative of Hodgson’s.