Quique Sanchez Flores looks likely to be next manager through Watford’s managerial revolving door

If Watford underperformed in the FA Cup semi-final and underachieved in the Premier League in 2016, where they only have three wins, they still rank as overachievers over the course of the whole campaign.

Watford striker Troy Deeney is consoled by his manager Quique Sanchez Flores after the 2-1 FA Cup semi-final defeat to Crystal Palace. Tony O'Brien / Reuters

He is the lone exception. Since the Premier League was formed, promotion to it has been secured on 70 occasions. Only one manager responsible was sacked before he could take charge of a top-flight game. The coach in question was Slavisa Jokanovic. The club that dismissed him: Watford.

The brief history lesson is necessary, considering the uncertainty that swirls around Quique Sanchez Flores. Jokanovic’s successor has lasted more than his four immediate predecessors. Like Jokanovic, he has exceeded most people’s expectations. His first season at Vicarage Road looks like being his last, too.

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Sunday’s FA Cup semi-final defeat to Crystal Palace had an air of finality: not in the occasion itself, but for the Spaniard, who repeatedly refused to confirm he will remain. An end-of-season review beckons and, while Watford’s campaign is a success by any objective criteria, Sanchez Flores’s employers may not see it that way.

Welcome to Watford, both a unique club and one of a group run in similar ways. The Pozzo family also own Italy’s Udinese and Granada of Spain. Their methods are quixotic but their track record is impressive. Impatience seems institutionalised, revolution permanent, the turnover of players so high that the casual observer could be forgiven for feeling confused when they see the teamsheet.

Perhaps it is a futuristic model, perhaps one that only works with a far-sighted scouting system that enabled them to take a young Alexis Sanchez to Udinese, benefit from his talent and sell him on for a healthy profit. Certainly it is a formula where the manager’s role appears to be reduced, even as the demands on him grow greater. In England, where the cult of the manager is at its strongest, this seems strangest.

Especially given Sanchez Flores’s exploits. Promoted clubs tend to be favourites for relegation. Watford passed the 40-point barrier with five games to go. They also reached the last four of the FA Cup and if they underperformed at Wembley and underachieved in the Premier League in 2016, where they only have three wins, they still rank as overachievers over the course of the whole campaign.

Of course, there are plenty of examples of clubs finishing one season poorly, taking that form into the next and paying a price, with Newcastle United seeming the latest, but it would have been unrealistic to expect Watford to retain seventh position, which they occupied at Christmas. That was all the more admirable considering they made 17 summer signings. A team was forged at speed.

One of the elements that adds mystery to Watford is the number and nature of some of those arrivals, whose moves were probably not instigated by the manager. Under Sanchez Flores, players such as Steven Berghuis, Obbi Oulare, Victor Ibarbo and Nordin Amrabat have either barely featured or proved ineffectual. Perhaps he is being judged for what he has not done, rather than what he has.

Yet the transfer policy and the revolving door for both players and managers means an identity has been lost a little. It is just as well captain Troy Deeney is a symbol of the club, because there are few others.

Perhaps that is inevitable in an increasingly globalised game and certainly owners with a proven record of recruiting well should not abandon it to embrace localism. Yet to outsiders there is a more heart-warming narrative to Palace, featuring a lifelong supporter, in Jason Puncheon, and managed by the scorer of their 1990 FA Cup semi-final winner, in Alan Pardew, heading to the final.

Perhaps, given time, the urbane, intelligent Sanchez Flores would be able to build a team with similar resonance. Instead, he may be left looking like a man who was a quick fix, keeping Watford up before taking his leave.

It is to his credit that Jokanovic has barely been mentioned this season. His record with Fulham is mediocre, which may support the notion the Pozzos seem to have that that the strength lies with their club, not the manager. Sanchez Flores represents an improvement on the Serb. Perhaps, in 12 months’ time, the verdict will be that Watford have upgraded again. In the meantime, though, making him Watford’s sixth former manager in three years would feel harsh.

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