Championship Final Weekend Preview

Watford

Likely Season Result Champions and automatic promotion

Manager Slaviša Jokanović

Watford have spent the better part of two decades bungee jumping up and down the Championship table. They’ve been promoted into the Premier League twice only to be promptly relegated again shortly thereafter. A 1-0 loss against Crystal Palace in the promotion playoff final two seasons ago prevented them from their first promotion under their new owners, the Italian Pozzo family. Their early season efforts were complicated by a reshuffling of managers due to performance and health issues, but the club finally settled on former Chelsea midfielder Slaviša Jokanović. Under his management Watford earned the league title – and automatic promotion – thanks in no small part to a streak of games that have seen the club lose only twice in the past three months. The club’s affiliation with the Pozzos has reaped significant benefits since the family’s purchase of the club in 2012. The family owns a small constellation of smaller European clubs, including Udinese in Italy and Granada in Spain, from which they are able to draw from a sizable pool of talent. Matěj Vydra, on loan from Udinese, has scored fifteen goals this season. If the club are able to secure his services permenantly, he’ll likely join a potent Premier League attack that also includes free-scoring Englishman Troy Deeney.

Prediction Watford should trounce fourteenth place Sheffield United. The coming summer will no doubt see some refitting from the Pozzos in preparation for the club’s first Premier League season since 2006-07.