Udinese and Watford will benefit from Davis winning goal

The last time Keinan Davis scored a goal in a competitive match before yesterday was when he netted the second in Watford’s 2-0 home win over Stoke on Monday May 8, the final day of the 2022/23 Championship season.

During the summer, Udinese paid €2.5m to Aston Villa for the services of Davis, and the Italian club got three hours of playing time in return.

The striker didn’t kick a ball for Udinese in 2023 at all, a calf injury ruling him out until January 7 when he made a seven-minute cameo as a sub against Lazio.

After that January debut, more injuries meant Davis played just 13 further minutes before late April, since when he has come off the bench in each of the final five Serie A games of the season.

Incredibly, Davis did not start a single game for Udinese and the 45 minutes of the second half of yesterday's game with Frosinone was his longest appearance of the season.

To coin a phrase commonly used by today’s youngsters, Udinese appear to have been pretty much ‘mugged off’ with a return of three hours for €2.5m – that is, after all, €13,889 a minute.

But the Italian club’s fans, staff and players – along with Pozzo family - may well have been waking up this morning thinking they would have gladly stuck another zero on the end of his fee and still feel it was worth every cent.

That’s because Davis scored the goal that kept Udinese in Serie A on an evening when, for 32 minutes, they were sitting in the relegation zone and facing up to falling through the trap door.

Yesterday’s final day of the season in Italy would have shredded the nerves of the handful of clubs at risk of the drop.

It was simple for Udinese – win, and they were safe. However, opponents Frosinone knew that should they lose they could be the ones going down.

Meanwhile, both clubs would be saved regardless of the result in their game if fellow strugglers Empoli failed to beat sixth-placed Roma.

The games all started at the same time, and Empoli went ahead after 13 minutes, dumping Udinese into the bottom three – where they stayed until first-half stoppage time when Roma equalised.

However, a goal for Frosinone or another for Empoli would have put Udinese back in the mire.

Enter hero of the day Davis.

Udinese celebrate last night's winning goal. (Image: Action Images)

He hooked home a half-cleared cross in the 76th minute to put Udinese 1-0 up, and suddenly they looked totally safe in front of watching owner Giampolo Pozzo and son Gino, who had popped over to presumably offer family support.

But then, three minutes into stoppage time, Empoli scored to secure a 2-1 win and all of a sudden the spectre of relegation was looming large for the Pozzos again as, had Frosinone equalised at the Benito Stirpe stadium, they would have stayed up and Udinese would have gone down.

It didn't happen and so their head coach, Eusebio Di Francesco, could be in for an interesting few days, especially as club president Maurizio Stirpe described it as losing "the most important game of our history".

So Udinese won 1-0, and finally finished 15th, three places and two points clear of safety.

A casual glance at the final table doesn’t tell the story though, as Udinese flirted with the drop for much of the season, and had been in and out of the bottom three in the weeks leading up to the final game of the season.

Indeed, while Davis scored the goal that ultimately secured their safety, they also owe a massive debt of gratitude to Lazar Samardzic – he scored a penalty 14 minutes into stoppage time last Sunday to earn a 1-1 draw with Empoli, who themselves had gone ahead from the spot in the 90th minute through M’Baye Niang (remember him from his loan spell at Vicarage Road in 2017?!).

Had Udinese lost that game, then things could have been very different.

It has, in truth, been a pretty awful season for the Bianconeri. If Watford fans think six home league wins is miserable, that’s five more than Udinese managed.

They took three points just once at Stadio Friuli in 19 attempts, and that was back on December 30 when they beat Bologna 3-0.

They drew 11 home games – 19 in total – and it was their away results which ultimately kept them in Serie A.

Roberto Pereyra nets the winning penalty at Milan in November. (Image: Action Images)

Incredibly, one of their five wins included a 1-0 success at runners-up Milan (courtesy of a Roberto Pereyra penalty) while they handed Juventus their only home defeat of the season in February, a 1-0 victory in which former Hornets keeper Maduka Okoye kept a clean sheet.

Past and present Watford players featured quite heavily during Udinese’s season, which is not a surprise given nine played for them during the Serie A campaign.

Christian Kabasele’s 13 outings including a goal in a 3-3 home draw with Verona in December, while Isaac Success registered 27 appearances (18 of them as a sub) and scored a stoppage-time equaliser to earn a 1-1 draw with Napoli at the start of this month.

Pereyra, who captained the team for most of the season, made 27 appearances and scored four times, while Okoye kept five clean sheets in 21 games.

Hassane Kamara in action for Udinese against Inter. (Image: Action Images)

Meanwhile Hassane Kamara repaid some of his €16m fee with 35 league outings and one goal, with Adam Masina (one start, three as sub) and Domingos Quina (two as sub) also registering league appearances.

Davis, Success, Pereyra, Kabasele, Okoye, Kamara, Masina and Quina are all Udinese players (and they still have an injured Gerard Deulofeu on their books), but the ninth with Watford connections – defender Joao Ferreira – is on loan.

He featured in 35 of their 38 Serie A games, although 17 of his appearances were from the bench and he only started one of the last eight.

Ferreira’s loan officially ends on June 30, but the €2.5m signing from Benfica is clearly behind Ryan Andrews and Jeremy Ngakia in the right wing-back stakes at Vicarage Road.

It would seem unlikely the Portuguese Under-19 international is going to sit around at London Colney waiting for a chance, and that is why Udinese avoiding relegation may be very, very helpful to Watford.

There were a number of Hornets fans willing them to go down, presumably because their disliking for the Pozzo family runs deep, and given how the last few seasons have unfolded such gallows humour is perhaps understandable.

But having a sister club in Italy’s top division is far better for Watford than having them lining up against the likes of such luminaries as Ternana, Sudtirol and Cittadella in Serie B next season.

First and foremost, would any club other than Udinese have signed Kabasele, Success, Masina and Okoye when Watford wanted rid of them?

Obviously, the likes of Ignacio Pussetto moved in the other direction so not every transfer between the two clubs has gone in Watford’s favour.

Yet with the Italian side also having signed the likes of Marvin Zeegelaar, Stefano Okaka and Davide Faraoni from Vicarage Road over the years, it’s clear Udinese have been helpful like only a family member would be when it comes to finding a home for players no longer deemed necessary by Watford.

Marvin Zeeglaar in action alongside Roberto Pereyra for Watford. (Image: Action Images)

Therefore, Ferreira returning to Udine for another season on loan, or signing permanently, has to be high on the list of probabilities.

Then there’s Matheus Martins. The young Brazilian has spent the last season and a half on loan at Vicarage Road after Udinese signed him from Fluminense in January 2023 and immediately loaned him to Watford.

It wouldn’t take much imagination to come to the conclusion that the Italian side did the Hornets a favour there – and so if Martins is not part of Tom Cleverley’s plans it’ll be up to Udinese to keep him, loan him or sell him.

That is much easier for Udinese to do as a Serie A club, than as a second-tier side.

And by staying up, Udinese will have far greater control of who leaves, meaning should Cleverley be interested in any of the Italian club’s players then he has a far greater chance of getting them.

The Watford head coach has made it clear that his preferred route for finding players in utilising his contacts within the UK for permanent or loan deals.

Nonetheless, it’s no secret Watford would most likely have signed Udinese defender Antonio Tikvic in January had the 20-year-old Croatian Under-21 international not played four games on loan for Bayern Munich’s second team in July and August, thus meaning he could not play for a third European side in the same season.

Given Watford need another left-footed central defender, it would come as no shock if they were reigniting their interest in Tikvic now Udinese are less likely to want him themselves next season.

After all, he only played one minute in Serie A; his only other appearance came in an Italian Cup tie.

Tikvic has a contract with Udinese until summer 2028, but a loan or permanent move to Vicarage Road is a far greater possibility with the Italians now secure in the knowledge of their top-flight status.

So while it’s easy to see why a cohort of Watford supporters were cheering on Frosinone and Empoli last night, the benefits of having Udinese in Serie A outweigh the sniggers and perceived comeuppance of them falling through the trapdoor.

Everyone knew, all along, that Keinan Davis would do something very important for Watford. It just took him 385 days to get there.