One of Watford’s greatest ever players, Troy Deeney, has admitted he’d tell the club ‘no thanks’ if they offered him the managerial position.
The author of one of the Hornets’ most famous goals and one of their highest ever goalscorers, Deeney has tried his hand at coaching with Forest Green Rovers upon retirement.
Yet if the club he’s most famously associated with came calling, it would be a rejection from the talkSPORT host.
Watford recently sacked Tom Cleverly after a disappointing end to the season that saw them finish 14th in the Championship.
Paulo Pezzolano, who achieved LaLiga promotion with Ronaldo Nazario’s Real Valladolid, has since been named as his replacement, but Deeney wouldn’t have been interested anyway.
Asked what his response would be if the club approached him, he said: “I’d think, ‘Thank you, but not for me’.
“The club will always hold a massive piece of my heart and the people there, but it’s just not the same anymore.
“Time has passed, people have gone, things have happened. It’s not that you can’t get those days back, but I think it’s just too much water under the bridge.
“I’ve got a lot of love and respect for the ownership, they helped me and gave me a platform to do what I needed to do, I don’t know if it’s the same the other way around but I’d hope that it is – love and respect back to me.”
Watford have been characterised by their coaching changes ever since Gino Pozzo bought the club in 2012.
Pezzolano will be their 18th manager in that time, with the unique approach bringing varied results.
Watford did achieve their first Premier League promotion in 2015 and after relegation in 2020 they came straight back up.
However, that was followed by another instant return to the Championship, and a bounce back is looking far less likely this time around.
Giving his take on his old side, Deeney said: “I just think the way that certain things keep happening and it’s like, ‘God, at some point you’ve got to make a decision’.
“You can’t keep selling your best players and replacing them with bang average ones and expecting to have results, it doesn’t work like that.
“I wish them well, but the talk at the moment is if this squad is good enough to get promoted, and it’s not – this squad’s not good enough to get in the play-offs.
“You had a good manager in Tom Cleverly, he handled himself with a level of grace and decorum that he deserves, because he’s a top bloke, and hopefully that will stand him in good stead to go and get another job.
“But for right now, you can’t tell me that team’s good enough to get promoted, it’s just not.”
Asked if Cleverly had been treated unfairly in his first role in management, Deeney was impressed by the former Manchester United man, but also provided both sides of the argument.
“What’s fair? Because the argument would be did he deserve the job in the first place,” he explained.
“They gave him a platform as an untried and untested manager – some people have been in the game for 20 years waiting for a job and would argue that’s not fair they gave him the job.
“The other argument to that is I think he was doing a good enough job, he should’ve got a pre-season and transfer window to go and effect things.
“They didn’t buy anyone in January and they sold one of their strikers, the top goalscorer from last year, in the summer and they didn’t replace him.
“I think he should’ve been given that. For me personally I think he did a good job and he should’ve been given the time to tweak it in the summer, but he’ll come again, he’s good.”
