Luther Blissett issues message to Watford FC

The club’s all time top goal scorer described the game as “all or nothing” with Watford inside the relegation zone going into the match and their fate not entirely resting in their own hands.

Aston Villa and Bournemouth’s results will also have an impact on where Watford finish the season, but interim head coach Hayden Mullins will know that his side need to give themselves the best chance of survival.

In order to do that, Blissett believes that an aggressive attitude is important and believes the example set by the league’s surprise package, Sheffield United, should be followed.

“They’ve got to be tight at the back and then they have to go out and take the game to Arsenal,” he said. “If you don’t take it to them and you let them settle into their pattern of playing, then they will turn you over. They’ve got so much pace in their forward line and midfield, you have to take the game to them.

“You always have to put them on the back foot because you cannot allow them to get into their game and their rhythm and into the way they play. Sheffield United and teams like that, they stop the opposition getting into their rhythm by making them have to do the bits of the game that they’re not particularly good at and I think that’s something that we need to do. It’s got to be to a man, and that’s even the ones sat waiting for an opportunity to get on the pitch, they’ve got to be in exactly the same frame of mind and when you make a change, you see a step up rather than no change in it.

“That’s got to be the attitude because it’s all or nothing, it is literally all or nothing. A draw’s not good enough, they have to win the game and then, if they’ve done everything they possibly could, you have to see what the other results come in at and that’s all Watford can do.”

Blissett is fearful that, even if the Hornets do manage to find a win against Arsenal, it still may not be enough.

If Aston Villa beat West Ham, then Watford’s victory would need to be by two goals more than the Villains’ result at the London Stadium to swing the goal difference in their favour. Having written them off earlier in the season, the former Watford striker is now impressed with what he sees from Dean Smith’s men and crucially he does not see the same from the Watford players.

“When we played Villa at Vicarage Road, I said in the lounge afterwards talking to the supporters, ‘they’re one of the worst teams that I’ve seen in a long while’, especially the second-half performance they put in against us, it was so poor. I couldn’t see them surviving at all, but what Dean Smith has done has been amazing.

“He’s got them together and they’re working really well and you look in contrast to our players, I look at the Watford team since they’ve been back and they almost look like strangers at times. When you think about what happened against Liverpool, you can’t recognise the two teams. Something seems to be not right within that group of players or within the squad, to have fallen as far as they have done.”

Not helping Watford has been more managerial changes, with three head coaches being shown the door this season.

Nigel Pearson became the most recent casualty last weekend, something which Blissett fears could be affecting the players. However, he praised the now former coach for the way he handled the sacking and for his calm words afterwards, in which he thanked the supporters and wished the team well.

“When a manager leaves I think the reaction of the players depends on the relationship they had with him,” he said. “If it’s someone that they got on really well with, it can take the players a game or two to pick up, depending on what the new head coach or manager comes in and is able to do.

“His job then is to really pull them back together and give them direction and give them purpose.

“It’s very tough and can be tough for the players when you keep getting new people coming in and changing because no two managers or coaches operate in the same way.

“We should acknowledge what Nigel said having been sacked, it showed somebody with a bit of class about him really, to come out and say that and thanking the fans. In respect of everything that’s gone on, he’s shown that he’s a bigger man than everything that’s gone on and showed good respect to the fans and the club and I thought that was brilliant.”

Regardless of which league Watford end up playing in next season, Blissett has urged the club to spend more time focusing on its relationship with supporters in the future and said he feels like the Hornets teams of late did not feel like they were fostering that connection in the right way.

Following conversations with both supporters and club captain Troy Deeney, the former England international said the club should look to examples from other English clubs and try to create a similar relationship between fans and players.

"It's got to get back to what the core values of what Watford and football clubs in this country are about and that's relationships with the supporters and the players and I'm not quite sure if we are as close to what that was anymore," he said.

"A lot of the things supporters send me on social media, and the feeling I'm getting more and more from them, is that they almost think that they don't care. Whether they're saying that the players don't care or maybe thinking that the model that is in place from the owners, it gives that impression because almost people have become dispensable. I don't know, but something's not right.

"We spoke to Troy a couple of weeks ago and he said he felt that hopefully the club would start going back to some of the old values about the supporters and that sort of thing.

"When you walk onto the pitch, it was the same for myself and all of us. The first people we were doing what we were doing for was the supporters. They're the ones. Then obviously there's the staff and everybody else, but the supporters are the ones that are going to be shouting, encouraging you when you're out on the pitch, so you went out and you performed for them. That is one of the good ways that you always could galvanise a team, was giving them a common cause and the common cause was the supporters.

"Those people that turn up week in, week out in the rain, wind or snow or whatever it may be, spending an awful lot of money travelling up and down the country, being there for you in those times in the games when you know they're singing and their support drags you through and you get a result from it and I think are the Watford teams of late being party to that way of thinking? Has it been about the supporters, or about just getting through the game and then the next one? I think sometimes that can be a major thing that gives you an edge over the opposition.

"That's why Liverpool when the Kop's singing, United when the Streford End's going, Chelsea when the Shed End's going, all these various clubs when their man body of supporters are there and everybody's singing along, it's an awesome thing. I've been out on the pitch when that's been happening and you think, 'goodness me, fancy playing in front of this every week, it must be quite amazing'.

"You go to those places and they've got 20, 30, 40 thousand people singing and shouting and going for it, it's quite an amazing thing. That connection is maybe not there. Troy alluded to the club needing to maybe get back to doing that himself."