Watford's Season: Chasing Goals Amid Squad Struggles
Watford’s season has barely started and already feels like a chase.
For a month, the story has been the same: a squad stretched to breaking point and a head coach trying to patch it all together. At one stage in August, Watford went into games with just two recognised centre-backs. Two. For a Championship campaign. It was a staggering gamble.
Deadline day eventually brought reinforcements, but by then the damage was already on the board. Points dropped. Momentum checked. A squad running on fumes.
The hierarchy at Vicarage Road will argue this was all part of the plan. They wanted better, younger targets. They refused to be bounced into panic buys. On paper, with the window now shut and everyone theoretically fit, this looks like a decent squad in most areas. Midfield remains the glaring exception, but across the rest of the pitch there is quality.
Some of the early business underlined that. Iker Bravo has lit up the opening weeks, a genuine sensation. Federico Ravaglia is a clear upgrade in goal. Jordan Zemura and Omar Traore have strengthened both flanks, dependable and dynamic options at full-back. Soumaila Coulibaly and Branimir Mlacic have also impressed when called upon.
The issue hasn’t been the top end of the recruitment. It’s been the sheer lack of bodies.
Alessio Dionisi has been forced to lean on the same core of players, game after game, often twice a week. The schedule has bitten hard. Injuries have piled up, legs have gone heavy, and the early-season rhythm has broken. What began in August has bled into September, and the performances have told the story.
To make matters worse, the late arrivals have not been close to full match fitness. Some have been short of sharpness, some short of minutes, yet they’ve still had to be thrown into a depleted squad because there simply weren’t enough alternatives.
The evidence is there on every teamsheet. Watford haven’t filled the maximum eight substitutes in their last two matches. For five straight games, they’ve named two goalkeepers on the bench. That is not tactical nuance. That is bare-bones necessity.
No wonder Dionisi keeps repeating the same phrase before and after games: “It’s not easy.” It isn’t. Not with this workload, this injury list, and this level of expectation.
The irony is brutal. For a Watford head coach, the international break has often been a moment of dread, a time when the club has pulled the trigger on sackings. This time, Dionisi can’t wait for it to arrive.
Once they get through Bristol City on Friday, the Hornets will have three weeks to breathe. Three weeks to rest tired legs, nurse players back to fitness, and finally work on something resembling a settled squad for the next phase of the season.
By that point, though, Watford will almost certainly be chasing. The board’s decision to sit tight in early August, to wait for better late-window opportunities, is understandable in theory. In practice, it has backfired. The squad they wanted is arriving, but the league table isn’t waiting.
Watford should eventually have a genuinely competitive group. The problem is the calendar. If that full-strength version doesn’t truly emerge until late October, and the aim is to mount a serious promotion push, they may find the mountain already looming large in front of them.
