The ex-West Brom player is reported to be on thin ice at Vicarage Road after a 2-1 defeat to Huddersfield.
Another six months have passed, and yet another Watford manager is facing the sack. Or so it appears.
According to Talksport, Valerien Ismael is expected to be shown the door at Vicarage Road, becoming the ninth permanent manager shown the door by the Pozzo family since 2020.
Plenty of competent managers have attempted to turn around the Hornets’ fortunes in recent years, and many have failed, although not for lack of trying.
The Hertfordshire club is something of a poisoned chalice for many Championship managers these days, with the Frenchman joining a lengthy list of managers who have failed to impress at the club.
A 2-1 defeat at the hands of relegation-threatened Huddersfield Town appears to have been the final straw for the ex-Barnsley man during his time at the former Premier League club, but was his spell as disastrous as others above him believe?
Football League World compares his record to those of previous Hornets managers to see how it measures up.
Jokanović and Muńoz lead Watford’s successful teams.
Slaviša Jokanović and Xisco Muńoz have led Watford for 36 matches each, which is an impressive feat in today’s times.
Both the Serbian and the Spaniard won 21 matches in their respective promotion-winning seasons at the club, with 58.33% of them ending in three points.
Jokanović’s team finished runners-up to AFC Bournemouth in 2014/15, earning five draws to Muñoz’s four, becoming the former Fulham and Sheffield United manager the most successful in the club’s history.
Mr Watford himself Graham Taylor is next on the list, with 244 of the ex-England manager’s 527 matches in his first stint in charge ending in victory, with his 46.3% win ratio coming at a time of exponential growth for the club, as the Hornets rose from the fourth division to the first with three promotions in five seasons, culminating in their highest ever league position of second in the top tier in 1983.
Taylor’s recent figures include Gianfranco Zola (44.0%), Brendan Rodgers (41.93%), Guiseppe Sannino (41.67%), Vladimir Ivić (40.91%), and Slaven Bilić (40.01%).
Legendary personalities like Bill Findlay (43.86%), Ron Burgess (41.82%), and Neil McBain (41.76%) are unsurprisingly at the top of the list, while the current Hornets boss is further down.
Ismaël faced the axe following a mixed season with the Hornets.
Ismaël has a current win percentage of 32.43% from 37 games in charge at Vicarage Road, ranking behind Gianluca Vialli (38.46%), Aidy Boothroyd (36.93%), Kenny Jackett (36.40%), and Sean Dyche (34.69%).
That means that only 12 of the former West Bromwich Albion player’s matches have resulted in three points, with 13 draws and 12 defeats, showing Watford’s ups and downs over the last year.
Only Bilic’s term from September 2022 to March 2023 resulted in a greater return for the team after Muńoz’s tenure ended in October 2021. Claudio Ranieri (14.29%) and Roy Hodgson (11.10%) were among those that faltered in Hertfordshire.
Chris Wilder’s 11 games in charge resulted in three victories from 11 matches at the end of the 2022/23 season, the same number as Rob Edwards achieved at the start of the same campaign before being ruthlessly dismissed by the club just months after signing from Forest Green.
Edwards has now gone on to greater and better things with rivals Luton Town, having leading the Hatters into the Premier League for the first time following playoff triumph last season, and the decision to let him go will not be well remembered at Vicarage Road.
Apart from Hayden Mullins’ brief winless tenure as caretaker manager, Hodgson and Ranieri’s spells in charge were the shortest ever for a Watford manager, while Quique Sánchez Flores’ second term yielded a ratio of 16.67%.
Watford boss Ismaël has struggled to adopt his unique, heavy-pressing style of football, resulting in the club slipping into mid-table mediocrity.
There have been far better and worse managers; getting fired seems unjust on a manager who will undoubtedly find success somewhere, but this is Watford Football Club, after all; who knows where they will go next?
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