Ed Still: Watford boss demands improvement after ‘reset’

Still replaced Javi Gracia, who resigned after a second spell in charge, and is the club’s 14th head coach, not counting interim bosses, since September 2019, when the Spaniard left for the first time, and 11th since the end of the 2020-21 season.

The former Charleroi, KAS Eupen and KV Kortrijk boss won two of his four games in charge but a 3-1 home victory over Wrexham is their only success in the last seven.

They have taken only two points in the last four games, leaving them in 12th place and 11 points adrift of Hull City, who are sixth.

“What happened last weekend, that performance came off the back of two or three games before that when we haven’t won. It makes the result and performance away to Oxford even worse because the context before that was negative,” he said.

“It’s been a really important week for the team and we’ve had to set everything straight again.”

He said it wasn’t the time for players to make “excuses or explanations”, adding the players were told “what hasn’t been good enough” and that it was made “very clear what has to be done this weekend” and in “the last three games after this weekend as well”.

He added: “This isn’t the first time this has happened this season – just before I came in there was a seven or eight-game streak when the team hadn’t won.

“Those aren’t the standards we want to be setting at Watford FC. The standards we’ve had to reset and redefine are very clear – now enough talking has been done and we’ve got to turn up at The Vic on Saturday.”

Watford are next in action at home to Sheffield United followed by back-to-back away games against West Brom and Middlesbrough, before they host leaders Coventry City on the final day of the season.

Defender Mattie Pollock was quoted after the Oxford game as saying it was the lowest point of his career.

Still added: “We all know who he is, what he stands for and what he’s given to this club. For him to say it was one of the worst moments in a Watford shirt, those are big words.

“I think it says a lot about what happened [in that game] and it also says a lot about previous seasons. People expect this is a kind of normal end of season for Watford, which makes me angry. We’ve played along to that narrative again.”