Details emerge as 54-year-old held talks with Watford last season | OneFootball

Slaven Bilic rejected the Watford job at the tail end of last season, as per a report from The Athletic.

The report states that Gino Pozzo approached the 54-year-old at the back end of the last campaign after the hierarchy at Watford had lost faith in Roy Hodgson.

Bilic, who met with officials of the Hertfordshire club prior to Hodgson’s departure, turned down the opportunity at Vicarage Road as he did not want to embark on a struggle to keep them in the Premier League.

Bilic was appointed the new Watford boss on Monday afternoon, with the Watford hierarchy pulling the plug on Rob Edwards’ tenure.

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Edwards represented a different kind of approach for the Hornets and it was expected he would be given time; that ultimately did not come to fruition.

The verdict

The mood at the club is one of disappointment if social media is anything to go by, and whilst Bilic has proven to be a top manager in this division before, it is a difficult situation to walk into.

Not only does Bilic have a slightly disjointed and imbalanced team at his disposal, but he is also under the pressure from the owners who evidently possess very high expectations.

Likely to bring an attractive brand of attacking football to Vicarage Road, it will be interesting to see how he sets up tactically.

Bilic saw success with the Baggies when deploying a 4-2-3-1 formation and it remains to be seen if that is a system he will use to tackle the Championship once more.