"An unwarranted approach" from Everton and a "lack of focus" from Marco Silva and his squad are the sole reasons Watford are suffering such a miserable run of form, if the punchy press release accompanying his departure is to be believed.

Silva has rightly taken the majority of the blame for the way things tailed off once he got a sniff of the Everton job, and the analysis of his arrogance has already been done to death 48 hours since he got the chop.

As any club would, Watford painted a PR picture leaving them blameless and Silva - and Everton - the perpatrators.

But it ignores a medical crisis stretching back 18 months, and a squad lacking the quality to deal with it, among other issues at Vicarage Road.

Gino Pozzo's five-and-a-half-year tenure as owner has been a near unmitigated success, all in all.

Even so, there is a still lot the club could learn from the sour taste left from a story which left Watford and Silva's stock plummeting, but will it happen?

1) The problem with egos

Even though Watford were already looking for a new head coach when Filippo Giraldi delivered an extraordinarily undermining interview on the club website, it was the last punch in a public spat which ended with Silva's KO on Sunday.

The Portuguese had been complaining to anyone that would listen about transfers since the Nordin Amrabat debacle in September. His views were at odds with Giraldi's, but given the way Watford is structured and the power the Italian wields, there was only going to be one winner.

Silva was unwise to take on Pozzo's right-hand man in public, even in the summer after a bright start.

But it beggars belief if Giraldi really believes the current squad is balanced, or that the best way to improve it is by getting everyone back from injury. If that were so easy, it would've been done a long time ago.

It's much safer to assume the interview was posturing for position in the club heirarchy and playing for time while Silva's successor was found. It emerged hours before his pre-Southampton press conference, for maximum impact to hit back at the head coach.

The club has since made clear transfer funds will be available for Javi Gracia to strengthen before the end of January, and that begs the question why an injury-hit squad badly needing additions was left to stumble through three weeks of the transfer window first.

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The board let Silva sleepwalk into his own destiny because they stubbornly didn't want to back him, but why let the club drop valuable points along the way? Either bring in reinforcements or sack him.

Gracia is the antithesis of everything the club hated in Silva, his need for control and stubborn rigidity. At Malaga he got on with the job when players were sold under his nose, and replacements brought in on a shoestring budget.

In many ways, that's admirable, and it's how this club is meant to operate - the coach looks after the coaching, the technical director looks after... well, the technical side.

But as we've previously said, that approach left Watford with two first-team wingers, an record-signing striker Burnley weren't unhappy to see the back of (even at the time, let alone after his start) and a backline with an injury record which would make Darren Anderton wince.

Silva was right when he said disagreement is healthy in any organisation, so long as you're pushing in the right direction. What he lacked was the humility to do it in private.

Working as a constructive unit is a must in future if Watford are to get the best out of their recruitment strategy, and leaving a head coach to sign his own P45 when points and transfers are badly needed is self-serving.

2) Squad depth

For a number of reasons, Watford didn't get their targets in some positions in the summer. That wouldn't have been such an issue if the squad hadn't been stretched injuries, but we'll touch on that more later.

The club has ambitions of a top-10 finish and that's been no secret. Scott Duxbury mentioned the word "ambition" nine times when he was interviewed on 5 Live at the end of last season.

But Marvin Zeegelaar, Molla Wague, Adrian Mariappa, Ben Watson and Etienne Capoue (not in terms of ability, but dedication) are not good enough to command a regular spot in a side aiming for the top half. And since the start of December those five have made 26 starts between them.

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Watford operate within a budget, of course, so they either have to be more savvy with their purchases - it was no secret in Portugal Zeegelaar is a better winger than a defender, for instance - or spend more.

3) Injuries

We've already done a long piece on this so we won't bore you to tears, but Watford's record with injuries is nothing short of appalling.

Hopefully, Dr Emilio Lopez-Vidriero's appointment will change that. But we said the same about Gavin Benjafield, who had four years at Ajax under his belt. So the jury's out on that one.

4) The approach of the club

There is very little chance of this changing, and it will be an unpopular view, but the whole-club approach engulfs each of the first three points in one, and another - the club's definition of a head coach.

The Pozzos have turned Watford to a mid-table Premier League club through a decent budget, fantastic stadium upgrades and a refurbished training ground.

That is enough to attract a certain calibre of head coach, and they have had good reason to dispose with each of Quique Sanchez Flores, Walter Mazzarri and Marco Silva, who came in with very good CVs.

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Each has been left with a number of players who were better suited to their predecessor - Daryl Janmaat was never designed for a flat back-four, for instance - and each summer has been a re-building job with the philosophy of the new regime partly in mind.

But if the ambition Duxbury mentioned in May is to be realised, and the massive potential of this club, it is something that is not helping them press on.

Rightly or wrongly, the impression to outsiders is that head coaches are easily dispensible. If you do that you attract the kind of man, like Silva, who treats the club as a stepping stone and knows he doesn't need to be there long.

It has served Watford just fine in establishing themselves as a Premier League club, but that yearly overhaul can't help but inhibit their long-term progression.

Either that or you get someone with a point to prove - a Mazzarri, who felt the need to test himself in England but was someone whose career needed rebuilding. And despite his success at Malaga, the same could be said for Gracia.

It's certainly possible that if the right fit is found, Watford will hang onto him. After all, Francisco Guidolin stayed at Udinese, run by Pozzo's father Giampaolo, for four years. We haven't had a manager/head coach last that long here since GT went in 2001.

Hopefully, the new man will be given time to implement his ideas, and perhaps coming in mid-way through this season will help him get up-and-running before a real assault at progression in 2018/19.

If he can work in harmony with the board and Dr Emilio's Midas touch can leave the squad in rude health, then things will be looking up.

Because if Watford are to push on and achieve the impressive vision Duxbury, Pozzo and Giraldi have for it, some lessons will have to be learned from a well-meaning but flawed half-season under Silva, which hopefully includes more soul-searching than Sunday's press release suggests.