Even a cursory glance during last season at social media and fan websites, or a soundbite from the many podcasts and video channels runs by Watford fans, would have given a clear indication that relations between the club and supporters were rocky.

Obviously, getting relegated and failing repeatedly in front of your home fans is a quick path to a breakdown in relationships.

Yet fans also felt cut off, that communication – or lack of it - from the club exacerbated an already grim situation.

I wrote about it for the Watford Observer a couple of weeks ago and so when I got the chance I asked chairman Scott Duxbury what he felt was going wrong.

“Firstly, I think that fans forums are a difficult format to discuss often sensitive issues as it is such an open and public arena. Not just for us, but for most clubs,” he said. “You just can’t get a large crowd in a room and give them honest, accurate answers because before the forum is even over things that have been said will be all over social media. That’s not fair to the fans or the club.

“I just don’t think it’s possible to say what you honestly feel in a forum like that these days. Let’s say a supporter asks a valid negative question about a player – although I might really want to say we agree, we want rid of him because he’s not performing and he’s unpopular in the changing room, what I’m going to have to say is that hopefully his form will improve, we’re all behind him, that sort of thing. The real, true answer will be out in the public domain and suddenly we have a bigger problem than we did before.

“So I wanted to try and find a way to set up a situation where I could speak in an open and honest way with a much smaller group of supporters. That led to us setting up the Supporters Committee, and suddenly we were chastised for that because we were seen to be hand picking who we spoke to and not inviting others who felt they should be there.”

Has the feedback and criticism led to a change of plan?

“We will not give up with the Supporters Committee model, and next time there will be a different set of fans, and the one after that a different set, and so on,” Duxbury explained.

“I’m not sure what else to try, but that doesn’t mean we’ll stop trying or that we won’t look for other ways of improving communication with the fans. I think it will get a lot better with Rob Edwards, because he knows he will be the main point of contact and information and he believes, like we do, that’s the right way.”

Duxbury also conceded that the revolving managerial door at Vicarage Road played a significant part in poor communication with the supporters.

He said: “We caused a lot of the problem with communication by constantly changing coaches, and the fact we are now not doing that will make things better.

“I want to be open and honest, I want to be able to communicate but it has to be done with the acceptance that social media makes that very difficult. If someone has suggestions then send them my way and I will happily consider them because I am open to any ideas to improve supporter communications.”