Watford have played 3 games, they’ve scored 1 goal and have 0 points. Their over/under is down to 37.5 points and their relegation odds have crept down to about even with the Aston Villa/Burnley/Brighton tier. Things have not started well for the Hornets. They do have two young players with massive skills and huge, though foggy, futures sitting on their bench. Well, until today at least. Checking through the League Cup stats on the fantastic TLS Football app, I noticed the rare double start for Isaac Success and Domingos Quina. It was the League Cup and it was against Coventry but they played quite well:

Quina was 66/72 passing with a couple shots, 3 tackles and 2 dribbles

Success had 2 assists among his 4 key passes, including a couple beautiful through balls. He also had 3 shots.

For a while I’ve been fascinated with these two players and how they excel at parts of the games that are hard to find. Could this run out against Coventry be preparation for the Hornets to swing for the fences and roll out these two huge talents into high-minute roles? Of course it isn’t, but it does give me a bit of a hook to open this piece with. I hope we get the chance to see these two really blossom this season on the way to helping Watford reach safety. My case laying out their strengths begins now.

Isaac Success

Played as a big, strong target for Foster’s goal kicks, he accumulated a massive share of his yards through receptions and wound up leading all forwards in total yards gained per minute.

Admittedly, he wasn’t winning a high% of his aerial duels (35% vs Deeney’s 47%) so this is a bit of a stylistic Watford forward receiving long balls quirk in one way.

But in another way it isn’t.

Troy Deeney’s top 3 passers toward him were Foster, Cathcart and Mariappa, a goalie and two center backs.

In fact 59% of Deeney’s total receiving yardage came from goalies or center backs.

Success, while still high, was significantly lower at 43%.

Success received 20% more yardage per minute from the Doucoure/Capoue/Pereyra trio than Deeney did.

Success received 60% more yardage per minute from that trio than Andre Gray did.

Success received 13% more yardage per minute from that trio than Gerard Deulofeu did.

So while he was getting a big chunk from just raw Foster bombs, he did show great skill in receiving forward passes from attacking midfielders, he was better at it than the rest of the Watford forwards.

I didn’t check minutes played together, so maybe there is some major difference in what share of minutes each forward played with those midfielders, this is what we need soccer-reference for, if anyone knows an easy way to find it out, I’m open. For now we assume the share was about even.

No one in the entire league drew fouls like Success did. I did not count fouls drawn as part of my yardage gained totals, his lead would have expanded even further if carries ending in fouls were counted.

Across Europe the list of players drawing 4 or more fouls per 90 was…Amine Harit of Schalke and Success. That’s it.

Among forwards (42 in sample) he’s 10th in DZ entries. He doesn’t just receive and hold the ball, he’s good at moving it forward into the final leg of the attack. As seen further…

Here. Quite the list of names here that Success only trails Fraser in.

So the question is why is Success so disliked and seems to be viewed as a Kodja-esque stiff by many Watford fans? When I tweeted this out

Success ranks among 52 PL forwards



-1st in yards gained per m

-8th in yards gained per ball loss

-14th in Danger Zone entries

-19th in % of touches leading to a shot



-.56 xG + A per 90

-Led league in fouls drawn — Saturdays on Couch (@SaturdayOnCouch) July 9, 2019

the general reaction was basically more in agreement with Patrick McNicholas than Lou Orns.

The debate rages on pic.twitter.com/J1KcAf4WiO — Saturdays on Couch (@SaturdayOnCouch) July 9, 2019

I think a couple reasons are his fitness (which you can see later in the video clip accompaniment wasn’t exactly a top priority this summer) and his off the field nonsense (police were called to an expensive and unsuccessful night with prostitutes). Those are reasonable reasons to dislike a player but not super relevant to this article, which is just looking at his on-field performance.

What I think is main on-field problem is he is viewed as playing as a forward, he looks like a forward, he gets long balls hit to him like a forward and he doesn’t really score goals.

He has 2 goals in his Watford career and is at just 0.24 xG per 90 over his whole career, a sorry number for a lead forward.

He doesn’t even receive the ball like a striker really. The players who had the highest % of his receptions in the Danger Zone are pure strikers like Giroud, Llorente and Vardy. Andre Gray is 7th and Troy Deeney is 24th like normal strikers.

Success was 59th down by Eden Hazard, David Silva, Dele Alli, and the like.

His average pass comes from higher up the pitch because he then turns and carries the ball.

He’s not a solo, shot-monster forward though. He’s a player whose best skill is finding space in between the lines, turning and carrying the ball while looking to play aggressive passes forward. He draws lots of fouls to help flip the field position and he then chips in with a few goals here and there.

Watch his half vs Ajax this summer

There is a lot to love about Success’s game and I think his appearance starting on the left in the Cup match is Watford finally realizing what they have and honing in on a better role with players in front of him. Because he’s big, hefty, and strong, they’ve been hucking long balls toward him and using him as a target man leading the line. This is desperately miscast. Success can be a jolt to any attack as a yardage-gobbling creative player who chips in goals now and then but does his best work receiving the ball and pushing forward.

He has 1.3 tackles won out of 1.7…if a coach could get those up when he plays deeper toward 3 total tackles you’ve really got something.

Domingos Quina

Quina is 19 and has just played 329 PL minutes so it’s harder to break down his game statistically. However…

in his very limited time last season he joined some amazing company Above The Curve there. With the exception of Kevin Stoger, basically every other player up there is a huge money, star or near-star central midfielder known for being great with a pass. Now these other players played many more minutes, but it’s better to be up there than down in the Declan Rice/Josuha Guilavogui Quarter of Future Centerbacks in the bottom left. Quina didn’t get involved in too many shots as you see the small size of the dot, but you can deal with that. Now, this is a lot to basically lump on a huge week he had in December when he played the full 90 vs Everton and Cardiff (Watford scored 5 goals in the 2 games). But the raw tools of an elite midfield engine are there, the talent popped last season.

Quina had a bad injury that knocked him out at the end of the season and he was out all summer. He’s just now back now to full fitness, I think he might be closer than Success to actually making it into the team.

Who’s stopping these two?

Doucoure and Capoue have been the deeper midfielders with Will Hughes and Pereyra ahead of those two as the attackers, but Cleverley got a start last time out against West Ham.

Watford generally leave the width to the fullbacks, so if Success was to make it into the team it would likely be at the expense of Hughes, Cleverley or Pereyra as you want him playing alongside goal threats.

Last year, no other midfield player mentioned above even had 50% of Quina’s yards per minute.

Hughes in particular offered little with the ball.

Cleverley can’t carry the ball and doesn’t get free to receive the ball anymore either.

There is room to find minutes, for Quina easily, for Success they will have to be earned off the bench at first.

The fog is still very large on these guys.

Quina has so few minutes and Success has yet to really play fully in his desired role and seemingly weighs about 7 kilos too much right now.

What I hope is that we can at least see Quina unleashed for 2000 minutes or so this year and Success to get 1000 minutes playing as a more creative outlet with players looking to make runs in front of him.

I think Watford need their best weapons if they want to succeed and stay up this season and Quina and Success can be very useful now, and especially if they are able to develop into the difference-makers they’ve hinted at.