Advertisement

Which two Watford managers conceded less in first 10 home games than Tom?

Tom Cleverley <i>(Image: Alan Palmer)</i>
Tom Cleverley (Image: Alan Palmer)

Only two managers in Watford’s history have conceded fewer goals in their first 10 home games than Tom Cleverley – and one of the names might come as a surprise.

With Saturday’s 2-1 win over Sunderland, the Hornets have let in just five goals in the 10 home games since Cleverley took charge at the end of last season.

Surprisingly, although John Goodall’s team won all of their first 10 home games in 1903/04 – and went on to win all 19 that season – they conceded five, the same as Cleverley.

However, those achievements were bettered by Beppe Sannino when Watford conceded just four during the 2013/14 season.

Clevs says formation is more attacking than 4-3-3

Sign up today and save 30% on year-long WO subscription

In fact, Sannino kept eight clean sheets in his first 10 home games and would have had a lower figure than four had the Hornets not drawn 3-3 with Blackburn in his 10th game at Vicarage Road.

But the best of all? That honour goes to Xisco Munoz, whose Watford side conceded a mere three goals in the first 10 home games he took charge of.

Munoz won nine of his first 10, the only defeat being 2-1 to QPR, and the only other goal conceded coming in a 2-1 victory over Derby County.

Graham Taylor, who also won nine of his first 10 home games, conceded nine goals in the process with a 3-1 defeat to York City doing much of the damage.

At the other end of the scale, Johnny Payton’s first 10 games in charge of Watford in 1955 saw them fail to keep a clean sheet as they conceded 25 times, while Hayden Green’s first game as manager was a 7-1 home defeat to Swindon in September 1951, and his team went on to ship 23 in the first 10 home games.

Saturday’s victory means Watford are now unbeaten in their first six home league and cup games of the season – a decent start, but still quite some way short of the match the club’s best, which is 19 games without defeat!

Two of those happened back at the start of the last century, but many fans still attending games today will have seen the most recent occasion – the start of the 1976/77 season under the late Mike Keen.

Watford won 13 and drew the other six of their opening 19 home games that season, a run that started with a 1-1 League Cup draw with Brentford on Saturday August 14, 1976, and ended when Brentford won 3-0 at Vicarage Road on Wednesday March 23, 1977.

Tom Dele-Bashiru became the first Watford player to score two successive penalties since Troy Deeney, who it achieved it away to Stoke City and then at home to QPR in the 2020/21 campaign.

That season, Watford scored a massive 11 penalties – in the four seasons since, they have scored just five, Dele-Bashiru netting the previous spot kick before Saturday in a 1-1 draw away at Bristol City on January 20 this year.

The most penalties Watford have scored in one season is 13 in the 1959/60 campaign, when Cliff Holton converted 10 and Dennis Uphill chipped in with three.

Dele-Bashiru’s spot-kick winner was also Watford’s 1,100th goal at home in the second tier of English football.

This is the third-best start to a Championship season under Pozzo ownership, bettered by 2014/15 and 2020/21- and both times Watford ended the season in second.

Watford currently have 13 points after seven league games, compared to 15 in 14/15 and 14 in 20/21.

The Hornets have scored in all except one of the seven league games so far this season, but have also only kept one clean sheet.

Additional stats from Jon Sinclair's WFC database at https://wfc.net/Database