On 2 May, with one match of the season still to play, Scott Duxbury said Watford had been “missing senior players who understood the Championship and had the mentality to guide our younger talent.” The players leaving, he said, would “in the large part” be “replaced by experienced leaders who understand the demands of this league.” The local press supplied the arithmetic he had left out: professionals in the twenty-six to thirty-two bracket, hardened by the division, who cost money and rarely carry much resale value. The season finished sixteenth, the club’s worst in the second tier under this ownership, and nobody thought the diagnosis was wrong.