Why Watford are the Premier League’s most entertaining club

When newly promoted teams come up to the Premier League, it’s rare that they make wholesale changes to their squad, and even rarer that they start with a new manager. And there’s good reason for the clubs to stick rather than twist: they are invariably far poorer than the division’s biggest spenders, and the old adage that warns against changing a winning formula weighs heavy on the mind.

Watford are owned by the Pozzo family -- who are also proprietors of Italian club Udinese and Spanish side Granada -- so it’s not all that surprising they’ve shuffled their pack as their priorities shift away from other leagues and toward trying to keep the Hornets in the lucrative English top flight. But what is surprising is the extent to which they’ve switched things up. Continuity seems to be of scant concern.

As neutrals, we’re certainly not complaining. Watford’s business has not only given them potential for hilarious, catastrophic failure, but exciting success too. They’re taking tentative steps towards the Premier League tightrope, and no one’s quite sure whether they’re going to suffer an embarrassing early slip or stun everyone by sprinting to safety.

Relegation battles can be stressful things; it’s good to be able to get some light relief. But unfortunately for Watford, they don’t seem to have realized that the goalkeeper is the last man that should be providing comedy value, with former Spurs goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes still gurning between their goalposts.

Heurelho, we couldn’t be happier you’re back in the big time.

José Holebas sticks out like a sore thumb in the Greek national team, and it’s not just because he’s got a Uruguayan name (especially because Holebas is Greekified as Cholevas). Neither is it because he was born in Germany, or because his 31 years belie a youthful, clean-shaven visage in a squad of suspect facial hair. No, Holebas also sticks out because he’s fun.

Indeed, it’s a wonder Holebas and his genetic South American flair have managed to survive a parade of dour Greece coaches for so long, with his swashbuckling runs from left-back and audacious attempts on goal seeming far too indulgent for a team that prefers crunching tackles to an artful dribble. But exciting showings at recent international tournaments first earned Holebas a move to Roma, and now to the Premier League.

It remains to be seen whether Watford boss Quique Flores will persist with the defensively-suspect Greek if the Hornets start to leak goals, but let’s hope he does: the departure of Rafael da Silva means there’s probably not a more entertaining fullback in the country.

No Championship player has been as consistently dominant as Troy Deeney over the last three seasons -- he’s scored 20 goals in all of them. At 6’0, he’s hardly the tallest big target man in the country, but he’s probably the second-most built after Adebayo Akinfenwa.

He didn’t record a goal or an assist against Everton, but he might have been Watford’s best player anyway, terrorizing the Toffees’ defense with his movement and holdup play. Deeney affected the game constantly.

Oh, and he scored this goal in the 2013 promotion playoffs.

This happened just a year after he went to jail for kicking a man in the head. Deeney is scary in many ways.

Swiss international Valon Behrami has played for nine teams since making his professional debut for Lugano over a decade ago, and has scarcely spent more than a couple of seasons at any of them. Despite often looking like a very competent footballer, he’s become something of a footballing vagrant, wandering cheerlessly from Europa League club to Europa League club before eventually landing back in the Premier League at a relegation candidate.

He’s not a particularly exciting player on the field, so you may well wonder why he’s made this list. Well, it’s because Behrami’s arrival in the Premier League is a transfer that can be enjoyed by everyone that cares.

Watford supporters will have been able to make a collective, authoritative nod of ‘he must be alright’ approval, upon being informed by Wikipedia that he’s been plying his trade in the colourful kits and exotic cities of Fiorentina and Napoli since his last Premier League spell. The cynical football hipster, meanwhile, would have delighted in the schadenfreude derived from the grim inevitability of Behrami’s stock falling from ‘solid continental squad player’ to ‘useful experience in a relegation dogfight’, such is the thankless life of the journeyman.

At 29, José Manuel Jurado isn’t even the oldest player on this list, but he is just about mature enough to qualify as an aging playmaker. It’s a role quite commonly filled on the continent, where the likes of Xavi and Francesco Totti have strutted their stuff well into their 30s. However, in England, where there continues to be a veneration of energy and spirit over technique and intelligence, the aging playmaker remains an exotic curiosity, treated with skepticism but respect; almost as if they carry some kind of magical insight into football’s mysterious mechanics.

Alas, Watford’s sage certainly isn’t of the caliber of Juan Román Riquelme, but Jurado should still prove to be an entertaining watch. After all, he has been about quite a bit, having spent the last three years at Spartak Moscow after appearances for both Mallorca and Schalke. He’s got the pedigree of a very good footballer, and there must be a reason that the Pozzo’s world-class scouting network have chosen to drop £6 million on such an elderly player.

Either that, or they don’t understand the ways of the playmaker, either.

Last, but probably the most obvious component of an entertaining team is the wonderkid; the starlet that has the potential to reach the top. And in this department, Watford have a couple of options, including summer signing Steven Berghuis. But perhaps most exciting of all is Czech striker Matěj Vydra.

The Championship is a nasty, physical league, and many who enter it struggle to adapt. It’s probably not the sort of environment that you’d want to throw a fresh-faced kid into. But that’s exactly what Watford did after being handed Vydra by Udinese a few seasons ago, and he responded by scoring a remarkable 22 goals. A disappointing loan spell at West Brom followed, but on his return to Vicarage Road last season, the Czech international netted another 16 times. That isn’t normal.

It’s a big jump from the Championship to the Premier League, and Vydra was an unused substitute in their first league game of the season. However, he signed a five-year deal with the club in the summer, and the Pozzo family clearly see Watford as the place where he can blossom into a star and be sold on for a very tidy profit. Let’s hope he sees plenty of game time this season.