It is not enough’ – Gracia disappointed with Preston draw and shares a sad message to Watford F.C.
Vicarage Road was wrapped in late-November chill on Saturday evening, but the real cold came from the touchline. Javi Gracia stood motionless for much of the second half, arms folded so tightly that the sleeves of his black club coat looked ready to tear. When Emmanuel Dennis rolled home a 78th-minute equaliser to rescue a 1-1 draw against Preston North End, the Watford head coach did not celebrate. He barely moved. And when the final whistle sounded moments later, he walked straight down the tunnel without the usual handshakes for the opposition staff. The message was clear long before he faced the cameras: this was not the result he wanted, and certainly not the performance.
“It is not enough,” Gracia said in the post-match press conference, repeating the phrase three times in the space of five minutes as if trying to drill it into his own players through the walls of the dressing room. “We are Watford. We have ambitions. Drawing at home against a good team like Preston is not a disaster, but it is not enough for where we want to go. Not even close.”
The numbers back up his frustration. Watford remain third in the Championship table, but the gap to the automatic promotion places has stretched to five points after Leeds and Sunderland both won. More worryingly, this was the third consecutive home game in which Gracia’s side failed to win — a sequence that began with the controversial 2-2 draw against Blackburn and continued with last month’s shock defeat to Plymouth. Seventeen points from the last ten matches is play-off form, not promotion-winning form.
Preston, managed by Ryan Lowe and fuelled by the relentless running of Danish forward Emil Riis, arrived with a clear plan: sit deep, frustrate, and strike on the break. They executed it almost perfectly. Riis gave them a 19th-minute lead with a goal that owed everything to Watford’s defensive sloppiness — Francisco Sierralta caught flat-footed, Ryan Porteous too easily turned, and Daniel Bachmann slow to come off his line. From that moment until Dennis’s late intervention, Preston looked the more likely winners.
Gracia did not hide from the tactical truth. “We knew exactly how they would play,” he admitted. “We spoke about it all week — the low block, the quick transitions, Riis running in behind. And still we conceded the same goal we have conceded too many times this season. That is on me, but it is also on the players. We have to take responsibility.”
The Spaniard has now overseen 61 matches as Watford head coach across two spells, and this felt like one of the nights when the weight of expectation pressed hardest on his shoulders. The club’s owners, the Pozzo family, have made no secret of their desire for an immediate Premier League return. Recruitment in the summer was expensive and ambitious — Dennis, Moussa Sissoko, Kwadwo Baah, Rocco Vata — yet too often this season the team has looked like a collection of individuals rather than a unit.
Sources close to the dressing room say Gracia delivered an emotional address to his squad immediately after the game. He is understood to have told them that “time is running out” and that “nobody will remember the excuses in May”. One senior player reportedly left the room in tears. Another was seen sitting alone on the team coach long after most of his teammates had departed for home.
Later, in a move that surprised many inside the club, Gracia took to Instagram at 1:17 a.m. to post a black-and-white photograph of himself on the touchline, head bowed, with a caption that has since been shared thousands of times by Watford supporters:
“To the Watford family,
Tonight hurts. It hurts because I know how much this club means to all of us. It hurts because I see every day how hard these players work and how much they care. But caring is not enough. Working hard is not enough. We have to be better. I have to be better.
We are still in a good position, but good is not our target. We want to be champions of this league. We want to bring Watford back to where it belongs. That will only happen if we demand more from each other every single day.
Thank you for your incredible support tonight and always. I promise you we will keep fighting. But promises are not enough either.
Come on you Horns.
Javi.”
The post has divided opinion among fans. Many praised the raw honesty and saw it as the kind of leadership the club has lacked in recent years. Others felt it was too public, too emotional, and risked adding unnecessary pressure on a squad that already looks anxious at Vicarage Road.
Gracia refused to be drawn on the Instagram message when asked about it directly. “Everything I needed to say to the players, I said face to face,” he replied curtly. “What I wrote was for the supporters. They deserve to know how we feel.”
There were, at least, some positives to cling to. Dennis’s goal — a sharp first-time finish after good work from substitute Matheus Martins — means Watford have now scored in each of their last 15 home league games, a club record in the second tier. Bachmann made two outstanding late saves to deny Riis a second, and 18-year-old centre-back Tobi Adeyemo looked composed on his full debut alongside Sierralta.
But mitigation was in short supply from the head coach. “We can talk about individual moments, about good saves, about a nice goal,” Gracia said. “But the reality is we dropped two points tonight. Two points we needed. Two points that Leeds and Sunderland picked up. That is the only reality that matters.”
Watford now face a pivotal week. Wednesday brings a trip to Stoke City, a side scrapping for survival and dangerous under new management. Then comes a home match against Queens Park Rangers next Saturday — a fixture that already feels like a must-win if Gracia is to avoid the first real crisis of his second reign.
As he left the media room, Gracia paused at the door and turned back to the handful of journalists still packing away notebooks and laptops. “One more thing,” he said quietly. “Tell the fans we are hurting the same as them. Maybe more. Goodnight.”
Outside, a few hundred supporters lingered by the players’ exit. When Gracia eventually emerged, he stopped to sign autographs and take photographs despite the late hour. One young boy in a 2019 FA Cup final shirt asked him if Watford would still go up. Gracia crouched down, looked him in the eye, and answered in fluent but heavily accented English:
“We will if we start being braver. Starting Wednesday.”
Then he climbed onto the team coach, pulled the hood of his jacket over his head, and disappeared into the night. For Watford, the next 48 hours will reveal whether that sadness can be converted into the kind of anger that fuels promotion charges — or whether “not enough” is in danger of becoming the defining phrase of another season.