Show caption Brendan Rodgers took over at Watford in November 2008 and led the struggling side to safety before leaving for Reading. Photograph: Steven Paston/Action Images Brendan Rodgers Grateful players, angry fans: the Brendan Rodgers legacy at Watford The new Leicester City manager is likely to get a hostile reception at Vicarage Road after an abrupt departure in 2009 but his players remember him warmly Simon Burnton @Simon_Burnton Sat 2 Mar 2019 12.00 GMT Share on Facebook

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When Brendan Rodgers takes Leicester to Vicarage Road on Sunday, it will be the third successive home game in which Watford have welcomed back a former manager. Sean Dyche received a healthy ovation when his Burnley side arrived in January while Marco Silva was the pantomime villain of Everton’s defeat last month. Rodgers’ reception is likely to be at the angrier end of these two extremes.

During six months in Hertfordshire a decade ago he guided a failing and relegation-threatened team to the safety of mid-table, making them not just more productive but considerably more entertaining, yet he is remembered primarily for boasting about his “loyalty” and “integrity” when dismissing links with the Reading vacancy in May 2009, only to join the Madejski Stadium club a matter of days later.

Much has changed for Rodgers over the last decade but the fury with which Celtic fans have reacted to his decision to return to England suggests many supporters still see him as a man who wins more trophies than friends. The players he worked with at Watford, however, remember him very differently.

“The players appreciated what he did and his style and how he came across,” says the midfielder Ross Jenkins. “As a young player he was always there to teach you and put his arm around you and tell you that you were doing well and give you confidence. His one-on-one skills were unbelievable.”

Jenkins had made three league appearances and was three weeks past his 18th birthday when Rodgers was appointed; he started 25 of their remaining 26 games and came on at half-time in the other. Rodgers’ team also included the 19-year-old Jack Cork, on loan from Chelsea, the 22-year-olds Tamas Priskin and Adrian Mariappa and the 20‑year‑old goalkeeper Scott Loach, who had been in only one of the 10 matchday squads preceding Rodgers’ appointment but under him played every game.

Brendan Rodgers: 'If I was making the decision with my heart, I'd be with Celtic for life' – video

Loach says: “We played Bristol City away on a Tuesday night when he was first appointed and he was in the stand watching. I’d only just broken into the team but he pulled me into his office afterwards and said he’d seen enough and had confidence in me. There were a few of us who were young at the time and he didn’t hesitate to use us. He made it enjoyable for the players. He was like a friend in and around the canteen, that was what took me by surprise. He was someone who’d come in and have breakfast with you and ask you what you’ve done over the weekend and it made us feel more comfortable. He was a great man‑manager.”

Jenkins also remembers that Bristol City match, a 1-1 draw played shortly before Rodgers’ appointment was confirmed. “Afterwards he said he was very impressed with me but he told me what I was good at and what I needed to improve on. So from day one I felt wanted, which as a young player is important,” he says. “After games he’d always take the positives and make the training ground a positive environment. He’d analyse the game and then forget it and that rubs off on the players. He was very good at changing the mood.”

Having cost £1.75m when he moved from Crystal Palace the previous year, Jobi McAnuff was one of the team’s key players. “I had one meeting just after he arrived, he sat me down and asked me how it was going,” he recalls. “I said I thought I was doing OK and he told me that shouldn’t be good enough. It made me really take stock and ask if I was settling for OK. He said he’d seen a lot of me in the past and thought I could do better. He likes to challenge people and see how they react and he made a point of trying to develop experienced players as well as the younger guys.”

Brendan Rodgers talks to his Leicester players in training. ‘His one-on-one skills were unbelievable,’ said one former player at Watford. Photograph: Plumb Images/Leicester City via Getty Images

After Aidy Boothroyd was sacked in November 2008 the reserve-team coach, Malky Mackay, took temporary charge. Many expected him to get the job full-time (he eventually did after Rodgers left) only for the club to appoint instead a then little‑known coach whose experience had come mainly at youth level. Tommy Smith, who was one of the more experienced players, says: “When Brendan was appointed I didn’t know anything about him at all. We had a team meeting where he introduced himself. He’s not a loud character, very unassuming, but first impressions were really good. His knowledge of the game was fantastic.”

McAnuff says: “From the first session he was really impressive in terms of his coaching. It was a real eye-opener for me at that stage of my career, fairly established by then. I thought straight away he was a guy who was going to go on and coach at a really high level. We were very engaged – he created a really fun environment but with great attention to detail. He’d be serious when you were working but he’d have a laugh and a joke and he handled the boys well off the training pitch. It’s hard for coaches to get that balance right but he was certainly able to do that.”

Under Boothroyd Watford had played a direct style of football that stood in total contrast to Rodgers’ preferred approach. Smith says: “When Brendan came in he wanted to play three at the back, split defenders, play through the lines. It didn’t work at all to start with. Our first game we were atrocious and I think he realised very quickly we weren’t capable of doing what he was asking. After a couple of games we went back to how we were and he implemented his style more gradually. We played some brilliant football, the longer it went on. It was just a huge transformation and a real breath of fresh air.”

After a season that ended with back‑to‑back wins many expected Watford to be among the promotion‑chasers the next year. But behind the scenes, changes were afoot. McAnuff, who was to follow Rodgers to Reading, says: “There were conversations and some of us were pretty much told we could leave. They were keen to cut the wage bill and bring some money in. It wasn’t a case of being chucked out of the door but they made it clear they wouldn’t stand in my way.”