Former Watford owner Elton John has said he is “upset and disappointed” by the club’s form following their 4-0 home defeat by Burnley. In a now-deleted response to a club post on Instagram, the lifelong Watford supporter wrote: “As a lifetime supporter of Watford FC, I am very upset and disappointed at the decline over the past few weeks. I really feel for the supporters who have to watch this.”
The result leaves Watford 20th in the Championship table. They have lost three consecutive league games and five of their past six. Burnley, who are 22nd in the table, had won only one league match in 2026 and had not won an away fixture in almost a year before Saturday. Watford were 3-0 down inside 25 minutes.
Watford appointed Alessio Dionisi as their manager in June on a two-year contract. The Italian became the club’s 12th head coach, not including interim bosses, since the end of the 2020-21 season. His side negotiated a challenging start to the season well, beating Southampton at Vicarage Road and then drawing away at Wrexham and at home to West Ham. However, they have picked up points in just one subsequent fixture, beating Preston 2-1 at home last month.
John’s connection with Watford runs deep. A childhood fan of the club, he had two spells as owner. In his first spell, he oversaw their rise from the fourth tier to a second-placed finish in Division One and European football under Graham Taylor in the 1970s and 1980s. He returned to take over the club in the mid-1990s, reappointing Taylor, who took Watford into the Premier League in 1999 with successive promotions. The 79-year-old released a book, Watford Forever, in 2024 detailing his relationship with the club, and has a stand named after him at Vicarage Road. He relinquished control of his boyhood side for a second time in 2002.