Watford 'ought to be delighted' with league position says ex-boss Wilder
Fans, officials and players “ought to be delighted” with the league position Watford are in at the start of 2025.
That is the view of former head coach Chris Wilder, who brings his third-placed Sheffield United side to Vicarage Road tomorrow.
Hornets head coach for the final 11 games of the 2022/23 season, Wilder knows the job from first-hand experience, and involved the current boss Tom Cleverley in the coaching side of things during his tenure.
“I have an enormous amount of time and respect for Tom Cleverley,” said Wilder.
“Tom has come into his first job, and you always want to win home games which he has done. The home record has been fabulous.
“I connected with him straight away when I came to Watford, and I wish we’d had the ability to play him.
“We leant on Tom a lot to give us an inside track on the group, which he did. He’s a really good football man, very bright and ambitious, and I’m not surprised at all at how well he is doing.
“This is a tough division and he lost a lot of quality players during the summer and has rebuilt with very little expenditure.
“Watford ought to be delighted with the position they’re in.”
If Watford have the right to be delighted, then Wilder and Sheffield United must be ecstatic.
Relegated in last place from the Premier League last season, having won only three games and conceded 104 goals, the Blades had a massive player turnover in the summer to contend with as well.
“We’re delighted in terms of the start to the season we’ve had, after a summer where we underwent rebuilding both in terms of players and culturally,” said Wilder.
“We’ve also changed the way we play.
“I’ve coached over 1,000 games and in that time I’ve used all sorts of systems, both in jobs and also to get my coaching badges and licences.
“But you tend to get pigeon-holed into being a coach who plays one sort of way.
“We did sign a certain type of player from 2016 onwards, and we had three seasons in the Premier League with Sheffield United which I think many other clubs would envy, even with a couple of relegations in there as well.
“So to change the way we played this summer, as well as so many players, we have done well.
“I think we had 20 players go out in the summer, including loan signings, and we brought 14 in as well as promoting half a dozen from the Academy.
“So to be on 51 points as we are now, after 25 games, I have to say we’re delighted.”
Wilder pointed out that despite parachute payments and relegated clubs generally having a higher calibre of players, an immediate return to the Premier League is never a sure bet.
“There would have been people who thought we might be hanging around the trap door, and there’s another club not too far from Watford who got relegated with us and are in relegation trouble,” he pointed out.
“Some of our punters might have thought we’d struggle, some might have thought we’d be mid-table, but I was confident we would be ok.
“But to have 51 points at this stage and considering our last four or five games we’ve had 50% of the team out, I am absolutely delighted.”
So, are the Blades now in a four-way battle for the two automatic promotion places?
“I’m never going to say that,” replied Wilder.
“Clubs can go on fabulous runs in the second half of the season, and that sort of thing.
“But what we have done is put ourselves in a great position to have a good go in the second part of the season.
“I think you always think your jockeying for position up until Christmas and then you see what happens in the new year unfold pretty quickly.
“You have a good idea, statistically, what gets you promoted and what gets you into the play-offs.
“Our season will be interesting going into the second half of it.”
Wilder, like Cleverley and every other manager/head coach, is now hoping to use the January transfer window to plug gaps in his squad and extra depth.
“We’re in a position where we’ve felt our squad has been a little bit light since the start of the season, even though we made a lot of signings,” he said.
“Our 1 to 11 is good, at 12 to 16 we’re not bad either, but then from 17 onwards we are pretty light compared to the teams that are currently above us in the table.
“Even if you look at the likes of West Brom, Middlesbrough, Coventry – I’m comparing what they have to bring off the bench to what I have, can they cope with injuries and so on.
“The Championship is a relentless fixture list. We’re just through the games over Christmas, now the FA Cup starts and we have a lot of three-game weeks ahead.
“I would imagine Tom, like us, will have assessed his group throughout the first half of the season and looked at what he needs to do in January to add to what he has.”
Four of the starting XI that Wilder selected for his final game in charge, against Stoke on May 28, 2003, are still regulars in the team.
“I’m really pleased to see Ryan Andrews getting lots of game time, because he was a player we identified as a youngster with a bright future,” he said.
“We got him involved in the senior group straight away, and for the club to have a local lad come through like that will delight the supporters.
“The outstanding player this season has obviously been Chakvetadze. I think he’s been one of the best performers in the whole division.
“I would imagine he has a lot of admirers in this division and in higher leagues at home and abroad.
“Every time I’ve watched Watford you notice what he does.
“They have some good, exciting players, and a lot of them are also young.
“Like pretty much every club, including us, they will want to now find consistency for the second half of the season.
“There are probably 24 Championship managers looking for that.”
His time at Watford was brief, but he’s certainly not alone in that over recent seasons, so what is Wilder expecting from the Vicarage Road fans when he steps out into the dug-out?
“The reception I get on Saturday is what it will be,” he said.
“I was slightly disappointed we didn’t get more out of the squad but if you look back at the managers Watford have had in just the recent past, I don’t think I’d be in a group of one saying that.
“There are plenty of others who have tried at Watford and not got out of the squad what they think they could and hoped they would.
“Maybe there is an underlying factor at the club. They’ve had a lot of managers of all types and not many of them have had success.
“I met a lot of very good people in my time at Watford, on and off the pitch.
“It was a challenging period but a good experience for me because I’d not really coached a group like that before.
“I came to the club with my eyes open, it was a proper challenge and I learned from the experience.
“I don’t think my career is defined by what happened at Watford or at Middlesbrough.
“It annoys me a bit that people try and define my career by what happened at those two clubs.”
Wilder said he made many friends during his 11-game stint, but also encountered a few players he’d be happy not to have to manage again.
“I enjoyed my short time at Watford, although there are some characters on the pitch that I won’t miss,” he admitted.
“Some of the players left me saying wow, but not in a good way – and I think the likes of Slav, Roy Hodgson and others would say the same.
“There were players who had their agendas with too many people around them.
“I remember going to Luton for a massive local derby, a huge game for the club and the fans, and a few minutes in I’m looking at some of our players and wondering what was going through their heads.
“I doubt I’m the only recent Watford manager who found it a difficult club to manage, but I had the opportunity to do it, I enjoyed it and gave it my all.
“I just wish it had gone better and I could have given the supporters the success they deserve.”
