One new manager wanted – with strings attached.

You are unlikely to have funds to strengthen your new team in January unless you generate your own by selling some of those players you inherit, although you may have to part company with one or more of your more valuable assets anyway to stop the club slipping further into the red, despite it having comparatively little debt.

The team you take over may still be struggling in the lower reaches of the Championship and continuing to leak goals at a rate that saw them develop the most porous defence in the division in the first third of the season.

And if that wasn’t enough, your new club will probably still be up for sale, its most famous fan has recently resigned his honorary position, you may be in place in time to see those who appointed you face a vote of no confidence and demands for their immediate resignation, and disquiet among the fans may be continuing to escalate.

It hardly sounds the most attractive proposition for a potential successor to Aidy Boothroyd, but that is the situation following this week’s unprecedented events in Hornets’ history.

Never before has the club been forced to call an emergency meeting at the request of two former directors, bade farewell to a manager and seen a person of the stature of Sir Elton John – accepting that his actions at Vicarage Road were not always popular nor without painful consequence – resign his honorary position within the space of three days.

It has truly been a remarkable week and it smacks of a club in turmoil, even though there will be some within the corridors of power who will argue otherwise.

Watford will have a new manager – although the merits of appointing one on a permanent contract are questionable when a new owner may decide he wants his own man – and there are certain individuals for whom the prospect of utilising the young talents in the club’s Academy and wheeling in dealing in the transfer market would offer an appealing challenge. And that is what Watford’s next boss, whoever it turns out to be, will undoubtedly have on his hands – a challenge.

That person may be the man currently in control of team affairs, Malky Mackay. I genuinely and sincerely wish him well because if he makes a success of his opportunity it will be good for Watford, at least on the pitch, and that is the primary concern of the majority of fans.

What happens in the next three, five or ten games is important. No fan wants to be approaching Christmas with their team facing the prospect of a relegation battle, but what occurs on the pitch is only part of the bigger picture that is the immediate future of Watford Football Club. It is a future that, from where I am sitting, does not look particularly bright.

Hornets chairman Graham Simpson says the club have only a small amount of debt and are moving into a £3m overdraft facility. I have no reason to disbelieve these statements, but rewind two seasons and Watford were in the cash-rich big-time and in a situation where talk of overdrafts was the furthest thing from most supporters’ minds. The club’s financial future appeared healthy at that stage.

Twenty-20 hindsight is a wonderful, and very convenient tool at times, but, like every person in a position of authority, directors are judged on their actions, and the increasingly popular view is that Watford are now paying the price for the efforts made to get back into the Premiership at the first attempt.

It is for the board to justify its decisions, but to an extent they were damned if they did and damned if they didn’t. Had the Hornets shown less ambition, for argument’s sake, in the transfer market last season you can bet there would have been demands from some supporters to know why.

Don’t get me wrong, ambition is a laudable quality, but with it comes a responsibility – a responsibility to have a contingency plan if that ambition is not fulfilled.

The chairman has now elabaorated on his ‘Plan B’ which was, effectively, to sell players. But it is the severity of those cutbacks, and the part they have played in contributing to the team’s current fortunes, which have angered many fans and may well have signalled the beginning of the end for Boothroyd.

So, were Watford wrong to effectively put all their eggs in one basket? Given what we know now, the answer in my view has to be yes – some money should have been kept back for a ‘rainy day’.

But the current situation has undoubtedly been exacerbated by an event few people could have envisaged the magnitude of, the global economic crisis, and that brings me back to my main point – the club’s future not looking particularly bright.

Where once there was interest, there is seemingly no individual or group now waiting over the hill, ready to charge into town on a white charger with several million pounds in tow.

I can understand those who want Simpson and his fellow directors to quit, but what happens after that? Who takes over? I am certainly not aware of a queue of volunteers currently forming at the top of Vicarage Road.

What of the immediate future? Well, unless something unexpected occurs at next month’s emergency meeting – or someone emerges with a viable alternative – it is hard to see anything other than the status quo remaining. Indeed, if the need for fresh investement drags on, the prospect of Vicarage Road being sold to Saracens may happen, given Nigel Wray’s desire to find a permanent home for his club.

Both these possibilities may be hard to stomach for some on top of this week’s dramatic, and unprecedented events, but the onus is now on those who feel, or are in a position to make a difference, to show their hand.