Nigel Pearson believes Watford’s lack of continuity and consistent in the dugout may have delivered some success under the Pozzo family but has had a detrimental impact on the playing squad.
Bristol City boss Pearson returns to Vicarage Road on Saturday for the time since managing the Hornets during the 2019/20 Covid-impacted campaign in which he was sacked two games before the conclusion of that season.
The 59-year-old took over with Watford seven points from safety and guided them out of the drop zone, with a three-point margin, but was abruptly dismissed only for them to lose their remaining two matches and return to the Championship.
Since Pearson’s departure in July 2020, Watford have been through a further seven managers and are onto their third of this season in Chris Wilder, having dismissed Rob Edwards and Slaven Bilic.
Lying 12th in the Championship, one place and three points above City and six adrift of the top six - with automatic promotion mathematically impossible - it’s been a season of underachievement in which the Hornets have been equipped with parachute payments and a number of Premier League-calibre players.
Should they miss out on promotion, it will bring fresh questions of the Pozzo’s policy, although the Italian family would counter that since they took sole ownership in 2014, they have achieved two promotions from the Championship into the top-flight.
“Having worked there I know what it’s like to manage the club and it’s a really good club in lots of ways. But I think if you try and look at it from a player’s perspective, where everybody knows it’s more likely that players will last longer than the manager, I don’t know the actual impact of that but my feeling about it is, it doesn’t lend itself to building success,” Pearson said.
“It lends itself to change. And change can sometimes be good, and change can have a detrimental effect. I don’t think it’s any secret that they’ve had some successes and some disappointments and if you look at it with a rational sort of mindset, I think it’s pretty easy to see why they’re a little bit up and down and have been for a while. The counter-argument would be they’ve been in the Premier League and come back down and gone back up.
“So it depends how you look at it but I think the club could do with a spell of continuity of message because it must be quite difficult for players to deal with, not the threat of constant change, but having to deal with different perspectives on a regular basis.”
Even on the eve of Saturday’s game, Wilder’s future has come into question with TalkSPORT reporting the 55-year-old’s job was under threat, with Watford then issuing a statement clarifying his position, albeit merely reaffirming his agreement until the end of the season.
Wilder has won just one of his six games in charge and, unlike fellow late-season appointments such as Neil Warnock at Huddersfield Town and Roy Hodgson in the Premier League, so far, has been unable to have the requisite impact.
“He used to live around the corner from me,” Pearson said. “I like Chris, I’m pleased he’s back in work and he knows what he’s let himself in for but it’s good to see managers who are prepared to take on difficult jobs for the short-term; it tests your own skills and ability to concentrate on what you can effect rather than everything else.”
The situation at Watford is a far cry from the relative model of stability Pearson has experienced over the last two-and-a-half years of being in charge at City with the Lansdowns remaining patient over what has been a long period of change and a great financial reset for the club.
When speaking on Thursday, Pearson was at pains to emphasise there is no right or wrong approach and, without going into specifics, some of the challenges he’s experienced in BS3 have been akin to those he experienced in Hertfordshire; a time in his career, despite how it ended, which he recalls with some fondness.
“We needed snookers when I went in there before Christmas,” Pearson added. “The players responded very well. Craig came in with me, which was a real help on a personal level, but the staff I inherited were fabulous and I still keep in contact with many of them now. English, Spanish, Italian members of staff - I made some really good friendships there.
“I am being a bit judgemental but I’m not being overly critical; I took the job on knowing what I was going into there. I didn’t go in trying to change things that I couldn't change. And that’s something that comes a little bit with experience.
“This is a totally different type of challenge. Change here has proved to be quite difficult whereas change there is normal. It’s how you want to look at it, I don't ever look at it through my own eyes, in terms of what I want.
"It’s just really interesting to know there are different clubs with different ways of doing things and there’s no absolutely right or wrong. It’s just you’ve got to accept there are going to be challenges in any job that don’t really fit with what’s best for you. That’s life.”
Naturally, there will be a number of familiar faces on the pitch and behind the scenes for Pearson to greet once again. Most notably in attack for the Hornets with Ismaila Sarr having showed clear signs of his talent during the 2020/21 season, and the City manager wise to the threat the Senegalese will pose. Sarr and Brazilian forward Joao Pedro have been two obvious bright spots in an underwhelming campaign with the former scoring nine goals and added seven assists, while the latter has found the target 10 times with four assists.
“In some ways I’m surprised he’s still there,” Pearson said of Sarr. “I thought he would be snapped up by somebody. I know he’s had some issues with injuries but he’s a very exciting player and he’ll be a real threat because of his pace and ability.
“Joao Pedro was signed when I was there. He may only have been 18, he’s really developed. They’ve got some really good players, there’s no doubt about that.
“But as I’ve spoken with the players what we’ve always got to be is collectively as good as we can be. In that framework then players have got their jobs to do individually.
"Our best chance of success is to have a very strong team ethic because we can’t compete (financially) with sides that come down from the Premier League so we have to have a different way of achieving success and ours is to develop a team identity, and hopefully we have some good individuals within that.”
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