Sporting director Cristiano Giaretta has resigned his position at the club, and Watford have acted swiftly to bring Gian Luca Nani back to Vicarage Road as his replacement.

It’s a bolt out of the blue for the Hornets, with Giaretta understood to have accepted another job at a club outside of the UK.

The Italian only spoke to the Watford Observer a month ago, and talked about his close working relationship with head coach Valerien Ismael.

“I was surprised, like everyone at the club I think,” said Ismael.

“It was news that came out of nowhere. There are no bad feelings though: he leaves on very good terms.

“But this is the life of football club: someone gets an offer and wants to leave, then you have to respect that.

“I wish him good luck for the future. I think that we worked well together. It was a very enjoyable time working with him, and I said to him ‘why now?’ as it’s just the beginning.

“But that’s football and we have to respect his decision.”

Giaretta has never been a particularly popular figure with fans, not helped by his lack of communication before the in-depth interview in November.

He almost exited the club early last season, but then stayed with head coach Rob Edwards being shown the door instead.

However, this is solely Giaretta’s decision – his hand was not forced by the club.

In replacing Giaretta, Watford have gone for someone they know well – Nani was appointed technical director at Vicarage Road when the Pozzo family bought the club in 2012.

He had worked with chairman Scott Duxbury at West Ham, and was influential in bringing a number of new players to the club first for Gianfranco Zola, and then Beppe Sannino.

Nani left just before the start of the 2014/15 season, saying he was looking for new challenges and describing the Play-Off second leg victory over Leicester City as “the single moment during which I have experienced the greatest emotion working in football”.

After a spell out of the game, Nani worked for eight months as technical director at Abu Dhabi side Al-Jazira, the UAE League club chaired by Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Watford Observer: Gian Luca Nani.Gian Luca Nani. (Image: Action Images)

More recently, the 61-year-old was sporting director at Reading for a short period at the end of 2018.

“I think that the board had already got the solution. I met with Gian Luca already, and he is someone that knows the club and has already worked here,” said Ismael.

“He knows the people, he knows the environment and he knows the way we want to work.

“It takes time to create a relationship and a connection, but my first feelings were that he has a clear understanding of what we want to do.

“I am comfortable working with anyone that wants to work for the club, and to help us bring success.

“There will be no change in the way we work, everything will remain the same.”

Losing your technical director less than three weeks before the January transfer window opens is clearly not ideal.

“Cristiano had worked on a lot already, but he will just pass everything in the current situation over to Gian Luca,” Ismael explained.

“Then with him we will continue to follow the way we were going.

“This doesn’t change the profile of player we are seeking. It will just be a different person acting as the contact between the club and the agents.”

It is understood the club have known of Giaretta’s decision for more than a week, but it clearly had no effect on the players – they have won at Hull and drawn with Southampton in that time.

“It hasn’t affected the players at all, and it won’t affect the players out on the pitch,” said Ismael.

“I work with the players with my staff each day.

“The change is in terms of the connection between the board and the football staff.

“The role Cristiano did was important, but we have already found the new person to do the same work.”