Reliving the 2010 win at QPR in the match thread has got me thinking about that 2010/11 Watford team in more general terms. I was at uni that year so couldn't get to many games, but the ones I did get to or saw on TV we looked like a very good team. In my memory they were one of the best Championship Watford sides and yet having just googled the final table they finished a lowly 14th place. I know we flirted with the play offs at the start of the season, but ultimately finished comfortably bottom half. So to those who saw more of this team, what went wrong? Looking at the BBC match report for that game at Loftus Road, it begins: "Championship leaders QPR were humbled by an extremely impressive Watford side at Loftus Road as Neil Warnock's team lost for the first time in the league this season." And the result took us 8th and surely gave us the confidence to kick on. But no... 14th. Looking through that team we had the England U21 keeper in goal (before his confidence got destroyed) a solid defence of the two Taylors, prime Mapps and ever reliable Doyley. Eustace, McGinn, Buckley, Cowie and Mutch in MF, very strong at this level. And up front Graham, who ended the league's top scorer on 24 goals. Admitted we were light in other options, relying on a lot of academy players to take up spots on the bench, but I'm still perplexed as to how this team didn't achieve more. Tell me.
I believe we were contractually obliged to finish in mid-table those days, regardless of whether we got ourselves in a relegation battle or a play-off push earlier in the season
Didn't McGinn get a career ending injury soon after? Also Taylor's half season loan ended with his last league appearance in the first match of the new year, with him scoring a cracking goal. We then got a young Danny Drinkwater in at the end of January and our record with him in the team was awful. Ultimately despite Graham and Sordell scoring plenty we did lack depth. Finally looking at the results, we only collected 5 points from the last 9 matches, had we retained our PPM in those games we would probably have finished in the top half.
Looking at our position with 9 to play, we were 8th with 56 points and 4 off of the play offs. https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/league-championship/16-march-2011/ Extrapolating our PPM we should have finished on 70-71 points but we finished on 61.
It was just what we did. We didn't play awful that season, and Graham was excellent in front of goal. We did exactly what we all knew would happen, which is to start strong, tail off, come back again then end on a whimper. Our defense had more bad days than good, and sides who worked out our system easily got around it. Like you said, our bench was inexperienced youth players, so any major injuries were going to be telling. I remember going to Millwall and we played them off the park. 6-1. We won at Sheff Utd and comfortably looked set for at least a playoff push. Was it confidence or downing tools? Never know, but at the end of that season most of us knew it was the Watfordy thing to do.
It was a bad injury, but not career-ending. He played for Sheffield United after he left us and has since had a decent career back in Scotland. He’s currently at Hibs.
Very enjoyable team to watch. It was a very honest hard working group of players who put their neck on the line each game. If we lost it was due to a fairly limited squad and if we won it felt great because expectations were low. Remember some very good games from that era.
Didn’t we win our last 7 away games with Sean Murray impressing ? And Troy scored a cracker v Ipswich ? We had the same sort of seasons under Dyche and Malky didn’t we? Solid mid table pushing for a play off for a bit but but falling away without ever being in danger.
It was season 11/12 where Sean made his real breakthrough, couldn't stop scoring, and looked like a future £10m+ player.....
Not sure, didnt start supporting us until a couple of years later. Think I was chelsea in those days. I'd need to check the league tables.
