The Hornets - Watford Football Club

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 12
Loads Of New Signings
Friday 17th July 2026

This is going to be a big Summer for us as we look to build a squad that can compete in the Premier League. My first signing is a player that comes up from the Championship with us, but has previous Premier League experience. Tom Davies has come in from Sheffield United in a bargain deal costing us just £1.1 million. He brings a superb work rate and some much needed aggression in the centre of the park.

Like Davies, our next signing also comes up from the Championship but again has previously played in the top tier. Leicester City were willing to part with striker, Patson Daka, and I was willing to pay their desired fee of £5.5 million to bring him to Watford. Again, I like Daka for his work rate, but this lad offers some blistering pace that can strike fear into the opposition and he's a decent enough finisher as well. His off the ball movement and decision making could use some work, but I am hoping he will be able to bag some important goals for us this year.

Next in was a boost to the defence, with an experienced centre back. Brendan Chardonnet comes in from Marseille for a fee of £4.5 million and at 31 years old and having played 302 career games, he will be a valuable senior player in the team this year. He's a natural leader, with some great defensive attributes...I think he is my signing of the window so far (although it's still early days).

The next signing is actually not one of mine and certainly one I wouldn't have done. Luca Kjerrumgaard was here on loan all last season and the club had already agreed a deal to sign him permanently at the end of the season for £4.3 million. However, he wasn't even a first choice regular for me in the Championship last year and only scored 5 goals in 16 league appearances. My only hope is that he will develop and we may be able to sell him for a profit at some point in the next couple of years.

21 players were released from the club this Summer. The biggest names were Moussa Sissoko who retired from playing, and Tom Ince who's contract I chose not to renew. That does mean I have let both our right wingers from last season leave and a big gap is now left to fill.

I wasted no time in bringing in a new player for that position. Carlos Martin was playing for Atletico Madrid's reserves all of last year and scored 10 goals for their B team. He might not be deemed good enough to get in the first team of one of Europe's elite clubs, but for a relegation battling Premier League side, he is more than good enough. Also, he didn't cost us anything as I managed to pick him up on a free transfer.

Another free transfer that I am really happy to get over the line is attacking midfielder, Lucas Ribeiro. The Brazilian has played a lot of his career in Belgium for Charleroi and Beveren, before featuring regularly last year in Spain's La Liga 2 for Cultural Leonesa, where he recorded an average rating of 7.25. I'm hoping he can become an important player for us.

Berkay Yilmaz is probably my favourite signing of the window so far. The left back is only 21 years old but already good enough to nail down a first team regular spot in my team. We only had to fork out £3.3 million to get him here from Nurnberg where he played 31 league games last year which is a bargain as he is immediately valued at nearly £20 million. This kid could become a very, very good left back and maybe one of the league's best over the coming seasons.

One thing I do need to make a concious effort on, is to build a squad which has an element of English players...not only because I like this (being an English club), but for squad registration rules. The English man I have turned to is a new number 1 keeper and as an Arsenal fan who loves him, I can't stress how happy I am to secure the signature of Aaron Ramsdale as our new number 1 keeper. Southampton were looking to offload him, so I managed to snap him up for just £7.5 million which seems a bargain to me. Ramsdale becomes the highest earning player at the club on £68k per week.

Then I made my first sale of the window as striker, Jorge Hurtado moves to Wrexham for a fee of £5.25 million. I didn't feel he was good enough to challenge for a spot in our first team and decided to cash in on him.

I was keen to add at least one more English player in this window and I'm delighted to have added 24 year old centre back, Taylor Harwood-Bellis, from Southampton. Taylor is already a very good player and now gets the opportunity to step back up into the top tier with us, after featuring in 34 league games for The Saints last time they were in the Prem. Harwood-Bellis signs for a fee of £13.25 million.

So far, we have played 3 pre-season friendlies, on our Portugal tour. Sporting were always going to be tough opposition, but we gave them a decent game, after recording a solid win over Estoril. Our most recent game saw us bang 8 past lower league side, Estrela, and preparation for the season ahead is well underway.

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 13
Hello Premier League
Wednesday 26th August 2026

I wasn't slowing down with the new signings and the latest player added to the Watford squad is Tottenham's Yves Bissouma, who joins for a cut down fee of just £4.8 million after falling out of favour in North London. Bissouma is perfect for my more defensive centre midfield role with his excellent tackling ability combined with decent determination and work rate. I think this is a great signing for us!

With a whole host of new signings, and with Moussa Sissoko retiring, I needed to choose a new captain. Centre back, Brendan Chardonnet is given the armband, with Aaron Ramsdale as his vice.

We played another 3 friendlies with impressive wins over Slavia Prague and Real Betis giving me some level of confidence that we are ready to tackle the Premier League.

The most impressive player of our pre-season campaign this year was Lucas Ribeiro. He featured in all 6 games (3 starts) and contributed to 6 goals. He was impressive in every match and is proving to be a very exciting addition to my squad.

With the season about to get underway, the Premier League odds are released and it is no surprise to see we are 6/4 to go straight back down with a 19th placed finish predicted. The usual culprits are expected to be involved at the right end of the table, with Liverpool the favourites to lift the trophy at the end of the year.

At least I'm sticking with my club. Frank Lampard, on the other hand, has abandoned Coventry to take charge as the new Everton boss. His first game in charge will be against us!

It was a point a piece for us and The Toffees on the opening day. I actually feel we could have won this game as the better chances fell to us, but I'll happily take a draw in my opening Premier League fixture and it's nice for us to get off the mark at the first time of asking. New signing Carlos Martin grabbed himself a debut goal to level things up after Everton had taken an early lead.

We didn't have to wait long for our first Premier League win as it came away at West Ham in our next game! It was a tight game, but we had controlled the midfield better and kept The Irons at bay for the first 86 minutes whilst scoring two goals of our own. When Summerville got one back for them, it was very nervey and you could see it as West Ham started to dominate the final minutes and even put the ball in the back of the net for a second, only for VAR to come to our rescue and rule it out for offside. We held on for dear life and ground out the result for a massive 3 points!

Now in the Summer, there wasn't just a load of new players signed for the club, but a big staff signing as well. Sebastian Bonig is an 'outstanding' set piece coach and I knew we would have to take advantage of our set pieces in what was going to prove to be a difficult season. It has immediately paid off as our second goal against West Ham came directly from a corner...hopefully the first of many set piece goals this year.

Without a doubt, our biggest challenge of the early fixtures this season came in the form of Manchester United. Although they're not necessarily the force of old, welcoming them to Vicarage Road is still a daunting task. However, Carlos Martin gave us the perfect start when he dribbled past his defender into the box and stuck his laces through a powerful shot which found the far bottom corner. The early goal clearly gave us confidence and we competed with United for the remainder of the first half - we weren't deterred when they scored the equalizer through Mbuemo and took a 2-1 lead into the break. We came out for the second half with a more defensive mentality and a view of shutting United out....and god d*mn it worked! We held on to claim a massive scalp and I have to admit I didn't expect us to be winning games like this in our first year back in the Prem.

Who'd have thought we'd be in the top 5 after the opening 3 games. However, there is a long way to go yet so there's no room for any over excitement at this early stage. But yea, I'm happy!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 14
A Cup Scalp, Martin On Form & A New Contract
Friday 25th September 2026

We went into this year's Carabao Cup as a top tier team and one that the lower league sides might not want to draw. Charlton were our first opponents in the competition and with a home draw on our side, we had every reason to feel confident of a win. I rotated the squad heavily, even given a debut to 16 year old Jauvaney Emmanuel (from the bench with 30 minutes remaining) and the lads that came in got the job done, even if it was by the narrowest of margins. Patson Daka gets his first goal for the club.

Our third round opponents will be a whole different kettle of fish!

Back to the Prem and Ipswich hadn't won any of their opening 3 games since coming up with us. They did take an early lead against us though, but that was only as good as it was going to get. Patson Daka picked up where he left off against Charlton, scoring again and grabbing an assist for Carlos Martin's first goal as well. Taylor Harwood-Bellis did see red late on, but luckily we had already secured the points by then.

The Carabao Cup came around really quickly and Man City were waiting for us. One things for sure, I wouldn't be featuring any 16 year olds in this squad and although there was some minor rotation, I played a strong side. Meanwhile City left out a couple of big guns and there was no sign of the big striking Viking...to my delight. It was a decision that Pep would live to regret as his team lacked firepower, only creating 5 chances in the whole game. On the flip side, we were at our attacking best and scored two stunning goals to take the win. Lucas Ribeiro's winning strike was incredible as he dribbled through the middle of the pitch, before unleashing a vicious strike which hit the top corner from 30 yards...a shot no keeper in the world is saving! A great result as we knock out one of the favourites to win the competition.

With that, the transfer window has now closed as well. The biggest deals of the English window saw Spurs centre back Micky Van de Ven join Man Utd in a £69 million deal, whilst Chelsea fork out a whopping £145 million for Bradley Barcola from PSG.

The transfer window closing did pose me with a slight problem. It doesn't close in all countries at the same time and Imran Louza has now left the club without me having the opportunity to replace him. He had a £21 million release clause in his contract and Al-Hilal have met that figure and he moves to Saudi. It's a nice cash injection for the club, but I won't be able to spend any of it for another 3 months.

Our next game in the Premier League was against our last opponents in the Carabao Cup...yep a double header against Man City. One thing that shocked me was the ommission of Erling Haaland yet again from the City side - he isn't injured so are they just underestimating us yet again?!

Despite maybe taking us for granted again, City did get their revenge over us, but we have nothing to be ashamed of here as again we gave them a really good, tough game.

It was important that we showed our fighting spirit at Selhurst Park against Palace and the lads did me proud coming away with a point. Eddie Nketiah had The Eagles in front in 22 seconds, but Carlos Martin bagged our equalizer right on the stroke of half time with a close range finish.

Carlos Martin has proven to be an amazing signing in his early Watford career, scoring 6 goals in 8 games in all comps. I wonder if Atletico Madrid are regretting letting him go yet?

On a much less positive note, we have received awful injury news for Edo Kayembe. He is out for the entire season after tearing his ACL in training. Kayembe was a major part of our title winning side last year, scoring 15 league goals and getting 3 assist and he has already scored once in four appearances this year too. Gutted for a player that I was keen to see how he would get on in the Premier League this year.

How we weren't 2 or 3 up against Spurs inside the opening 20 minutes, I'll never know. Patson Daka missed an absolute sitter, Tom Davies hit the post with a side footed effort and Chardonnet hit the crossbar with a header from a corner. We weren't deterred and continued to dominate the first half and Kwadwo Baah hit the post with just 2 minutes of the half remaining...we went into the break wondering how on earth we weren't in front. We kept up the pressure in the opening stages of the second half and thought we finally had our noses in front on 54 minutes, only for Mike Tresor's goal to be ruled out for offside! It just wasn't going to be our day and we can certainly count ourselves unlucky to only come away from this one with a draw.

There seems to be an extended International break now for the UEFA Nations League (England have 4 games scheduled over the next 2 1/2 weeks), so we now have nearly a month before we will play another competitive game! I'll have to set up a couple of friendlies I think to keep the lads fresh.

The break did at least give the board a chance to thrash out a new contract with me and I have signed a deal worth £46k per week for the next 3 years.

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 15
How Have I Been Overlooking Chakvetadze?!
Sunday 22nd November 2026

During the long international break, we played a couple of friendlies against Austrian opposition, mainly to keep the legs fresh in the team.

We returned to competitive action with an away day at Sunderland and it was a good day out in the North East. A dominant performance all round as we cruised to victory and Kwadwo Baah celebrated his new 5 year contract (signed this week) by scoring a brace.

The balanced mentality I have been playing so far this season has been serving us pretty well, but for the first half an hour against Brighton, we were being dominated. So I went to an attacking outlook and immediately we were on the front foot and got back to level terms before Patson Daka scored a tidy finish to give us the lead just before half time. The second half was back and forth and an open game where both sides created chances, but it was our opponents who took theirs to level things up and return to the South Coast with a draw.

After knocking Manchester City out of the Carabao Cup, we had drawn their arch rivals in the next round and a trip to Old Trafford was on the cards. On this occasion, we didn't come out on top, but boy can I be proud of my lads. We took United all the way to a penalty shootout after coming back from 2-0 and 3-2 down! I had some big choices to make throughout the game and one of them was to make 4 subs at half time. That saw Giorgi Chakvetadze and Patson Daka come off the bench and they combined for both our first two goals, with Daka then going on to seal his hat trick. In the end it was sudden death pens and the 6th one that we went out on, but I can't fault the lads for their effort here and we can consider ourselves unlucky to be out.

Giorgi Chakvetadze spent a large part of last season injured and this year, I haven't really given him a chance to show what he can do. But after coming on against United and bagging two assists, I might need to look at him a little closer!

Kwadwo Baah was my player of the season last year and it remained to be seen whether he could reach the same levels in the Premier League this year. Well, I think he's showing that he is up to the standard as he lifts both the Player of the Month and Young Player of the Month awards for October.

Baah picked up where he left off last month by scoring against Aston Villa in our 2-2 draw. I also gave a start to Chakvetadze who impressed in the Carabao Cup and he justified the decision by getting the assist for Carlos Martin's goal.

Arsenal at The Emirates is a daunting prospect for any side, let alone a newly promoted team! Well, not for us it seems, as we only went there and won!!! I'm starting to question my own judgement for overlooking Chakvetadze all this time as he scored both goals to give us victory! Easily the result of my Watford career so far!

At Arsenal, we took a defensive mentality into that game, but back at home against Bournemouth I felt we could play with a more positive tone. I was proven right as we dominated the possession from start to finish and momentum was with us throughout the entire 90 minutes. Kwadwo Baah tucked away a couple of nice goals both from central areas in front of the goal from about 10-15 yards out. A nice victory.

Baah really is impressing this season as he currently finds himself inside the top 5 players in the league on average rating.

There is no doubt that his performances this year have been a massive catalyst in propelling us up to 4th in the league after the opening 12 games! We won't get ahead of ourselves just yet, but I think it's safe to say we won't be finding ourselves in amongst the relegation battle this season as expected.