Any Portuguese in a Storm

[Uilleam 5,533]

From The Guardian, a short piece on Watford's Portuguese Manager, or Dud, as many have said, including Sky pundits.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2017/sep/25/marco-silva-proactivity-patience-key-watford-transformation

 

Marco Silva’s proactivity and patience are key to Watford transformation

 

The anticipation of half-time changes by Swansea and being prepared to wait for his resulting new system to bed in while giving instructions from the sideline could be a defining weapon

 

Lawrence Ostlere

Monday 25 September 2017 14.40 BST Last modified on Monday 25 September 2017 22.00 BST

 

How many other Premier League managers would have done what Marco Silva did? Watford were 1-0 up and looking comfortable against Swansea City on Saturday when half-time came. In the home dressing room at the Liberty Stadium, Paul Clement prepared two substitutions in an attempt to turn the game. In the away dressing room, Silva anticipated the changes and reacted by ditching the four-man defence Watford had used in every minute of the season so far to play three at the back.

 

“We changed at half-time as we know they will do this change to three up front,” Silva reflected. “They started to react in the last minutes of the first half. They changed in the second half to two strikers with [Jordan] Ayew in behind – three strong players to challenge in duels. We changed things in half-time as well, to prepare for this situation.”

 

At first it seemed Silva’s gamble would fail. The Mali defender Molla Wagué came on for his debut, replacing the midfielder Étienne Capoue, and for a while Watford struggled to get to grips with the new system. The pressing and rapid transitions into counterattack fell away and Swansea soon equalised. “We changed the formation and sometimes when you change formation you need more minutes to come in a good shape again,” Silva said. “When more minutes passed … we controlled our opponent more.”

 

Eventually they began to settle. Ayew’s influence dwindled as the Watford defence became more dominant. Silva used a break in play to convey a flurry of instructions to Tom Cleverley in midfield. Finally, in the 90th minute, that signature pressing forced a late mistake and set the impressive Richarlison through to crash home the winning goal. It was Watford’s third away win in succession and the captain, Troy Deeney, credited his coach. “Fair play to the manager, he got it right. He would have got a lot of stick if we hadn’t got the result.”

 

Perhaps they would have won anyway, perhaps not, but Silva is clearly not the type to wait and see. Even in his short time in English football, the Portuguese has already proved plenty of doubters wrong. When Silva arrived at Hull City in January, hardly known in England, Sky’s Paul Merson dismissed his achievements – such as a 17-game winning run at Olympiakos (“that can happen”) – and Phil Thompson said the Hull job was like “manna from heaven” for a man with Silva’s CV. Yet Hull’s performances under Silva were night and day from those before his arrival and Watford have started with swagger.

 

It has not all been good, of course, and the 6-0 defeat by Manchester City underlined the inherent risk in an admirable style of play. Watford committed to short passes from defence to midfield, even deep in their own half, and City quickly swarmed around them to steal the ball. The performance could be put down as a one-off against rampant opponents if it was not for some similar displays by his Hull side last term, who shipped three or more goals seven times in four months.

 

A penchant for the occasionally disastrous was a memorable trait of Wigan Athletic under Roberto Martínez, who took several major Premier League scalps and won the FA Cup playing easy‑on-the-eye football, yet also presided over the club’s heaviest defeats – 9-1 at Tottenham Hotspur and 8-0 at Chelsea – and eventual relegation. Silva has shown more than enough in his career to date to suggest Watford will not develop a similar flaw in the long term – and will have the chance to prove it against higher quality, with Arsenal and Chelsea on the October fixture list.

 

For now, though, Watford will revel in a third consecutive away win in the top flight for the first time and Silva’s proactivity from the sideline, which could become a defining weapon.

[Rousseau 9,604]

That set of Sky Sports pundits needs replaced. Merson in particular is past it with his views; Thompson, Nicholas and Le Tissier are not much better. We're not going to improve as a footballing country if these guys are the source of wisdom.

 

Sounds like a very Portuguese way of playing. I've not seen much of Watford, but I will look out for them from now on.

Edited September 26, 2017 by Rousseau

[Uilleam 5,533]

And there's more from the increasingly Lusophile Guardian, today.

 

It's perhaps more interesting in the light of our current, alleged, dressing room travails.

 

Marco Silva brings welcome stability to Watford after his own turbulent spell

 

Marco Silva appears the right fit at Watford after their struggles under Walter Mazzarri, and his own short spells at Sporting Lisbon, Olympiakos and Hull

 

Simon Burnton

@Simon_Burnton

Friday 29 September 2017 13.42 BST Last modified on Friday 29 September 2017 14.01 BST

 

If Watford’s current league position is a surprise, it is not the first that Marco Silva has pulled off in a young but incident-packed managerial career. There was his initial success in his native Portugal at Estoril, within three seasons guided to promotion and successive top-five finishes; the manner of his departure from Sporting Lisbon, which was officially put down to him wearing the wrong suit to a league game; and the abruptness of his departure from Olympiakos, after one successful season and one week into preparations for the next, because of personal reasons.

 

But to those who know the club well, the enthusiasm with which Silva has been embraced is anything but surprising. As one club insider put it: “Whoever came in to replace Walter Mazzarri, so long as they had good people skills and could speak English, they were going to be an improvement in every way on what was happening last year. With the way Mazzarri came across to the public and the way he was on the training pitch, so long as you’ve got decent people skills people are going to think straight away that you’re good. It’s as simple as that.”

 

Silva himself does not accept that his task has been remotely simple. At least in public, he talks of hard work and individual sacrifice. So while he says the atmosphere has changed since he arrived, the transformation has not been wrought by anything as superficial as his cheerful demeanour and only slightly stilted English. “It’s different because, in football, results help,” he says. “But for them to come we needed to work really hard, and after to give good answers in the matches. Of course it’s different. I said to the players in our first meetings: ‘We need to build something inside the club, a commitment between us. One good dressing room.’ And until now what is my feeling? In some moments in matches, in some moments during the week, I think we were together. And in some matches this makes a difference.”

 

Last Saturday’s victory over Swansea City was a case in point. After Watford dominated the first half-hour the home side took back control, equalised and seemed the more likely to find a winner. But Silva’s side refused to submit, fought their way back into the game and stole a winner in the last minute. “Every time the wind changes, you react again,” Silva says. “In the last 15 minutes we believed again in our philosophy, in our game. I think it’s really important. It happened because everybody stayed together. It’s not only because we achieved good results until now, but because we started to build something important in our dressing room.”

 

The Watford defender Sebastian Prödl says: “He’s different to the last two coaches we had. I think he’s very clear in his opinion of how to play football. He’s very demanding: he wants a lot of discipline, not only on the pitch but also off the pitch, which means respecting the rules outside of the pitch, be on time, these kind of things. I think his philosophy is, if you’ve got discipline off the pitch it’s even more likely you have it on the pitch as well. On the pitch he’s got his opinion and he’s very focused. Every second in training sessions he’s preparing us well for the games and you can tell he loves his job because he’s so focused.”

 

It is not only Mazzarri’s character and communication skills that have assisted Silva’s start, but also his results. Watford finished their last campaign in a lowly 17th place after a dramatic late-season slump, helpfully reducing expectations (though the Italian’s fate had already been sealed and discussions with Silva’s agent had begun before that rotten run). Over the summer significant improvements were made to the squad, particularly in midfield and attack, and once the transfer window closed those in charge of player recruitment congratulated themselves on assembling a group worthy of a top-10 club.

 

Silva has not been fortunate with injuries, which have prevented him from selecting the same back four in any two games this season and have denied him the services of Nathaniel Chalobah for at least three months. “I have tried to bring more stability to our backline,” the manager says. “I hope we will have that for some games in a row because it’s really important to us.” Of Saturday’s game against West Bromwich Albion, Silva says “it is important for us that we don’t change many things in our style, in our behaviour”.

 

Off the pitch, fortunately, Silva has become adept at dealing with change. After playing his way around much of Portugal Silva joined Estoril in the summer of 2005 and stayed for nine years, six as a player and then three as manager. It was a time of stability and of success, which has been followed by more success and less stability. And now Silva, a manager who changes club every year, has found Watford, a club that changes manager every year.

 

“I feel well. Normal,” he says of his new life on the outskirts of London. “I can adapt really fast in every situation. I came here to create something, to work really hard, to put my philosophy into the club. That’s what I’m here to do, to pass something to the players. And after, I’ll make sure everything is normal in my life. It’s OK. Everything is OK.”

 

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/sep/29/marco-silva-watford-coach-sebastian-prodl