Watford's English head coach Nigel Pearson (R) puts his arm around Watford's Spanish midfielder Gerard Deulofeu (L) at the end of the English Premier League football match between Manchester United and Watford at Old Trafford in Manchester, north west England, on February 23, 2020. (Photo by PAUL ELLIS/AFP via Getty Images)

Watford replace manager 1 week before Arsenal – again

Jul 19, 2020

Watford are replacing their manager a week before they play Arsenal, just as they did back in September, according to reports.

Arsenal's Spanish head coach Mikel Arteta gestures on the touchline during the English Premier League football match between Arsenal and Liverpool at the Emirates Stadium in London on July 15, 2020. (Photo by PAUL CHILDS / POOL / AFP) — Arsenal’s Spanish head coach Mikel Arteta gestures on the touchline on July 15, 2020. (Photo by PAUL CHILDS / POOL / AFP)

According to reports, Watford manager Nigel Pearson is losing his job two games before the end of the season, with Hayden Mullins and Graham Stack to take over for the matches against Manchester City and Arsenal.

Forgive me for this, but I’m going to ask you to cast your mind back to last September. You might remember exactly the same thing happening. Watford sacked Javi Gracia and brought in Quique Sanchez Flores a week before the 2-2 draw against Arsenal.

Now, I’m not going to put that result entirely on new manager bounce. As we all know, it was much more a case of the team playing incredibly poorly under Unai Emery. But having a new man in charge definitely helped inspire Watford too.

What with Aston Villa also fighting for their lives in the Premier League, these final two games are looking a lot more complicated than they did when the fixture list originally came out.

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