Can Walter Mazzarri be a long term solution for Watford?

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While many would criticise the Pozzo family who currently own Watford, you definitely can’t argue with their ambition and hunger for quick success. The appointment of Walter Mazzarri is the latest event showing Gino Pozzo’s ruthlessness, as the Italian has become the eighth manager to take control at Vicarage Road in the past four years.

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The departure of Quique Sanchez Flores from Watford was met with widespread criticism and it is clear that a 13^th placed finish in the Premier League and a FA Cup semi-final appearance were simply not good enough for the powers that be at Vicarage Road. It is a massive statement from the owners and they feel that their investment was not matched by performances on the pitch. Besides the excellent cup-run, performances after the turn of the year were largely not good enough at Watford and while a change in managerial personnel might appear to be harsh, the owners are sticking to their vision of where the club should be.

So, what can Watford fans expect from new man Walter Mazzarri? He has taken the reins at a number of big clubs within Italy including Lazio, Napoli, and Inter Milan, and has enjoyed a relatively large degree of success with those clubs, including taking Napoli to the last 16 of the Champions League and a Coppa Italia final with Sampdoria. There is little doubt that this knowledge of some of the biggest competitions in European football would have influenced Watford’s decision to appoint Mazzarri.

The former Inter Milan manager arrives in England having built a solid reputation as a coach and a tactician who as shown his ability in a number of different situations. He prefers to employ a 3-5-2 formation and has previously coached current Watford players Valon Behrami and Miguel Britos, so arrives with some knowledge of his playing staff.

The Watford job is slightly different to any of the projects that Mazzarri took on in his native Italy, as the role at Vicarage Road is about trying to propel a mid-table side up; who are out of form at the moment, up the division. It remains to be seen as to whether Mazzarri has the managerial ability to achieve anything close to what the owners are looking for. However, the size-able investment that the Pozzo family are pumping into Vicarage Road will give the Italian every possible chance. Mazzarri also has a reputation for immediately improving the fortunes of any club that he arrives at, so this may go some way to appeasing the owners at Watford.

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This is potentially the start of mass hiring of Italian managers into the Premier League as a result of the recent success of Claudio Ranieri and Roberto Mancini before him. While the results are highly unlikely to be as immediately successful as Leicester’s efforts this year, it is still possible that if Watford were to give Mazzarri a good amount of time to mould Watford into his own team, then they could start to see some success coming their way soon. Mazzarri himself has never spent an enormous amount of time at one club, but did his greatest successes during his four-year spell at Napoli – where he won the Coppa Italia and finished as runner-up in Serie A.

Only time will tell how successful Walter Mazzarri will be during his time at Watford and whether he can be the man to break the trend of sacking managers very early in their contracts at Vicarage Road. However, his long and distinguished managerial career forged in Italy will hold him in good stead as will the fact that he has been admired for a long time by Gino Pozzo. This may buy the Italian some more time but if results fail to improve and Watford don’t build on the efforts of the previous campaign, you can expect the owners to once again pull the trigger on another manager.

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