Christian Kabasele calls Watford 'weak' after joyless season

The statistics from the wretched campaign speak for themselves. 11 home defeats in a row, 27 defeats overall, only two wins at Vicarage Road and 77 goals conceded, all contributing to a relegation of seismic proportions.

Memories of this torturous year of football will linger sickeningly, like a mental acid reflux in the minds of those unfortunate to have witnessed the team's cursed attempts to just not be completely awful, before the arrival of next season will bring along a whole new set of concerns.

But before that happens, Kabasele wanted to take stock of both what has happened and why it has happened, while also considering who the real victims are in all of this.

The Belgian knows that ultimately it is the supporters, those unable to walk away from the club no matter how palatable an option it may be, that have suffered the most over the last ten months.

"We let them down," Kabasele conceded. "Losing 11 games in a row, it's too much and it's unacceptable for a professional team.

"At the end of the day, players come to the club, but then they leave; some directors come to the club, then they leave. But the fans will remain at the club, and I think they are the real owners of the club. Maybe they are the only people who will stay behind the team and they will stay longer than anyone. We owe them something next season."

The defender describes the dressing room at the Vic as a "terrible" place to be on match days, with a string of unfathomable setbacks sending the team on the longest home losing streak in the club's history.

Kabasele believes that run was the result of Watford being simply "too weak" to serve up anything positive for their supporters to enjoy.

"It was really difficult because we always had this positive feeling because we were close to getting a point or winning games, but then there would be a setback, and the next game another setback. It was always setbacks, setbacks, setbacks," he continued.

"After the game it was terrible to be in the changing room because everybody was disappointed, and we didn't understand how it was possible to not change our form. It was a shame, especially for the fans because I think that they stuck with us more than we deserved.

"This was the most disappointing thing because when you play at home, you want to play with confidence and you want to bring joy to people, but we were simply too weak to do that this season.

"Hopefully next season we will be able to change that."

After the opening match, supporters and players might have envisaged an entirely different outcome to the season, with a 3-2 win over Aston Villa kicking off the campaign in celebratory fashion.

From then on, it was nothing short of catastrophic. Just five more points were earned at the Vic, as the Hornets quickly became the league's whipping boys.

Kabasele blames their shortcomings on a lack of appreciation of the situation, claiming that for some in the team, skills took priority over points.

"We stopped doing the same work and putting in the same effort as we did in the first games," he suggested. "Maybe we thought that we just needed to go on the pitch, to show off a little bit of skill and a little bit of individual talent.

"Maybe we were doing too many things to look good - to look pretty when you watch it. But in this league you have to be efficient. I think this was a big difference with the other teams around us. When they were attacking, when they were playing in general, they were playing to save their life. And I think a lot of us didn't understand that.

"When you play to stay in the Premier League, you need to be efficient, you don't need to be pretty. I think that the mentality wasn't right at all."

The season's disastrous nature meant Watford's owners once again swung their axe liberally at their head coaches, with three separate bosses all unable to get the required performances from the squad.

Given that results didn't change under any of the men put in charge during the campaign, Kabasele suggests the blame for the failure may lie elsewhere.

While the Belgian recognises that constant changes prevent the development of an identity, he knows that a semblance of consistency has to come first. And that simply did emerge under any of the three managers in charge this season.

"I think everything starts from the players, because if we were doing our job on the pitch, the club would not have to change the manager," he said. "When you change the manager three times, I don't think the problem is the manager, the problem is that we were not good enough after 38 games to stay in this league. This is the truth; this is the reality. And everything starts from us.

"If we were able to perform and to produce something on the pitch, just in terms of maybe a fighting spirit, maybe the club would not have to change the manager so many times. At some point we need to take responsibility, stop blaming other people.

"After, of course, it would be better to stick with the same manager for a longer period of time. Then we will be able to build a proper identity into our game. But we know how the club works and as the players, we need to respect the decisions that have been made by the board."

Whether or not Kabasele will be at the club to participate in its rebuild under new head coach Rob Edwards is yet to be decided.

He hopes that he will be at the Vic again next season, with his family happy in Hertfordshire, but he knows that in football there are no certainties.

"I like the club, I like the town and my family is well settled," he said. "So I'm hoping to stay at the club. But you don't control everything.

"We didn't discuss my future here with the club and if tomorrow the club tells me that they don't want to keep me, this will be football and I will try to find another place to play.

"I will do what the club decides and we will see because the transfer market is really long. In football you're never 100 per cent sure about where you will play until the transfer market has closed. But we will see.

"I don't have any issues about staying at the club, if the club wants me to stay. And the same, I don't have any issues about leaving if the club wants me to leave.

"They will, and we will, decide what is the better solution for everybody."

With post-mortems and analysis on last season completed, there is only one place left to look: ahead.

While Kabasele remains optimistic that Watford can repeat their trick of being promoted back to the Premier League at the first attempt, he has warned his teammates about the dangers of approaching the Championship with hubris, saying that egos will be a hindrance rather than a help.

"I'm optimistic," he said. "If, and it is a big if, everybody is humble enough to respect the Championship and to put any kind of ego in the bin.

"The Championship is really really difficult and if we think that we will go into the Championship and win every game 3-0 or 4-0, and that we will only face weaker opponents, we have no chance.

"We need to work hard from day one of pre-season and once again, the pitch will tell us if we need to go back in the Premier League, or if we deserve to stay in the Championship.

"I think everybody needs to be optimistic, but we need to stay humble and to keep our feet on the ground, because it will be difficult."