What Watford can teach us about the choice of sacking or backing a manager

The Pozzo family bought Watford in June 2012. One of their first acts was to sack manager Sean Dyche. Since then they have employed 13 other managers – one of them twice. The latest to be sacked was Xisco Munoz, who has been replaced by Claudio Ranieri.

We all know the Watford way. Is it the best way? Would they have done as well if they had stuck with Dyche?

To answer those questions let us start by looking at how much Watford have paid players and what results they got.

Watford were in the Premier League for five seasons from 2015-16 to 2019-20 and are back this season. In the first season their payroll accounted for 2.5 per cent of the Premier League total. In the next four seasons it accounted for three per cent. After 12 months away I suspect that this season it will be back to 2.5 per cent.

My analysis of Premier League payrolls suggests that reasonable expectations for Watford’s owners would have been one point per game in the first season and this season and 1.1 points per game in all other seasons.

What results did Watford’s managers deliver? Munoz averaged one point per game. Quique Sanchez Flores (across two spells), Marco Silva and Walter Mazzarri averaged 1.1 points per game. Javi Gracia averaged 1.2, Nigel Pearson 1.3.

Every manager met or surpassed reasonable expectations. So why were they sacked? Because after some acceptable or good results there were some bad results. Almost every time Watford have a bad run the manager is sacked. Munoz got seven points from seven games, which was not really a bad run, but he did have a relatively easy set of fixtures.

Dyche at Watford had finished 11th in the Championship when reasonable expectations, according to my analysis of Championship payrolls, would have been 15th. His next job was at Burnley. He won promotion to the Premier League in his second season, was relegated in his third but then won the Championship and has now spent another six seasons in the Premier League.

Burnley have usually paid players slightly less than Watford in the Premier League. Overall, my analysis suggests, reasonable expectations for the owners (who changed last season) would have been one point per game. Dyche has delivered 1.1 points per game. So he has slightly exceeded reasonable expectations.

There were times, though, when he would have been sacked again if he had been at Watford. Burnley are without a win after eight Premier League games this season. That is not unique. There have been sequences of 11 and ten games without a win. Another time they went eight games without a win. There have been two sequences of seven games and two sequences of six games without a win. After each previous bad run, however, there was an ordinary or good run.

Every manager the Pozzo family have hired was qualified to manage Watford. So was Dyche. I can see no evidence to suggest that Watford have done better by continually changing manager than they would have done by keeping one – or that they have done worse.

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