JOB SHOULD BE SAFE FOR ONE MORE WEEK, SLAVEN

Hornets smash four to give new boss Bilic perfect start

BY JOHN WRAGG

WITH a bit of luck Slaven Bilic will wake up this morning and still have a job at Watford.

You never know with Watford, even after this perfect start.

Bilic is their fifth manager in 12 months but, on this evidence, a sixth won’t be along for a good while.

Ismaila Sarr put Watford ahead in the 11th minute, Ken Sema doubled the lead midway through the second half, and Keinan Davis and substitute Vakoun Bayo sealed the rout late on.

It could have been worse for Stoke because Sarr headed against the post, Sema had a shot deflected onto the woodwork by goalkeeper Joe Bursik, and sub Imran Louza missed a sitter.

Even trigger-happy owner Gino Pozzo will keep his firing gun in his pocket after hungry Watford tore poor Stoke to bits.

Bilic reckons they need to copy and paste this performance and put it on repeat for the rest of the season.

“Great start, well deserved, a great win,” said former West Ham manager Bilic. “It was absolutely what we wanted, the strikers to score, the midfield to be creative, the defenders and the keeper to have a clean sheet, everything was there.

“When we play like that our front players and our wide players have the quality to hurt any defenders.

“It was no fluke. We can copy and paste this for the rest of the season. Based on this performance we have a team that can compete for promotion.

“But the Championship is very long. I know, I’ve been there, and the good thing about this squad is they have experienced it from a couple of seasons ago.

“They don’t have to lean about life in the

Championship. It’s one of the reasons I came here. You can’t buy that.”

Watford are seventh, one point off the top six, and look set to join Sheffield United, Norwich and Burnley as promotion favourites.

Hornets could have been out of sight by half-time given that early goal and the two efforts that found the woodwork.

Sarr dipped to head Hassane Kamara’s superb cross to put Watford ahead, although

VAR would have had an offside opinion about it had it been in use.

The Potters were able to wobble to the break without any more damage but, after Bursik blocked Davis, Sema got to the loose ball rather than

Ben Wilmot and put it over the line. Then Stoke lost the ball yet again and it allowed Davis to smash home before Bayo rounded off the scoring from close range.

Stoke manager Alex Neil didn’t pull his punches afterwards. “I can dress it up any way you like but, after the second goal went in, we were c**p,” he said. “I’ve never had a side that accepts getting beaten.

“We’re playing with a lack of confidence in the first instance.

You’ve got to build confidence and that comes from results, but you’ve got to build something to be the bedrock of that and that’s got to be resilience.”

It was Stoke’s worst home defeat for five years.

Pozzo would never put up with that.