Watford fans are unsentimental, know the drill and adore the owners – but Javi Gracia’s sacking is still hard to take

WATFORD fans tend to wear each managerial sacking as a badge of honour these days.

An opportunity to stick it to any pundits calling for the club to follow conventional wisdom by giving managers time.

And a celebration of the fact that popular and decisive owners the Pozzo family are able to spot problems before they occur.

Watford supporters are used to then having the last laugh as the club emerges stronger and further establishes itself in the Premier League with the shock therapy of each sacking.

But something about the dismissal of Javi Gracia feels different.

That something is not the fact that he led the club to an FA Cup final and its highest ever Premier League finish, although neither will be forgotten quickly.

It’s more what Javi Gracia represented.

He was one of few, if any, bosses in the revolving door Pozzo era who actually looked like a Watford manager.

Plenty of coaches shown the door by Gino Pozzo can boast of outstanding achievements at the club.

Slavisa Jokanovic got Watford promoted before failing to agree a contract renewal, while the man who will replace Gracia – Quique Sanchez Flores – took them to 13th position and an FA Cup semi-final in their first Premier League season.

But neither felt quite as embedded into the Watford ethos as Javi Gracia.

Rarely seen without a smile on his face, never complaining about transfers and almost always giving those players who worked hardest the chance to play, Gracia could have fit seamlessly into any historical era of a family club like the Hornets.

The Pozzo family noticed and appreciated this to the point that in November last year he became their only Watford manager ever to be handed a five-year deal.

CEO and Chairman Scott Duxbury has repeatedly declared that the lifespan of a Watford manager should be no longer than two years as, after that point, they will either logically underperform and be sacked or overperform and get offered a job at a bigger club.

But even the Pozzos – probably the Premier League’s most ruthless owners – allowed themselves to believe for a short while that a longer term marriage was possible with Gracia, who embodied everything good about Watford past and present.

That, in itself, is another thing that grates about his dismissal.

The Pozzos specialise in proactive sackings – identifying issues and troubleshooting before they emerge in public.

Gino Pozzo and technical director Filippo Giraldi are at the club’s training ground on a near-daily basis and are quick to detect any change in mood among the players and staff.

It was this that led to Quique Flores’ first departure from the club.

Yet in the summer, Pozzo and Giraldi were reportedly happier with the atmosphere at London Colney than at any time since promotion in 2015.

All this suggests that the owners were unable to detect any underlying issues until results turned, have failed to do what they normally do best and been forced to resort to a cliché, reactive and, arguably, knee-jerk sacking for the first time in their tenure.

Gracia was also left to struggle with a defence that looked like it was on life support at the end of last season, culminating in the 6-0 FA Cup final loss to Man City.

The owners’ response to this was to focus on freshening up the attack with the acquisitions of Ismaila Sarr and Danny Welbeck.

Investment in the defence was limited to the £5.5m signing of Craig Dawson – the first centre-back to join the club in three years.

As a consequence, Watford shipped six goals in home defeats to West Ham and Brighton and could have let in more – which is why Gracia is out and Quique Flores has been chosen to replace him.

Teaching whatever group of players he is given to defend as a unit is what Flores was born to do.

He conceded 50 goals with the newly promoted Hornets in 2015/16 – the same total as Liverpool.

It was this record that saw Stoke pursue him in January 2018 as they looked to boost their survival hopes and Newcastle linked this summer to the same end.

Flores’ appointment is all about keeping Watford in the Premier League and both his CV and first spell at the club suggests he has the ability to do it.

But the fact that Javi Gracia, rightly or wrongly, won’t be given that opportunity is a little hard to take.