{"id":46400,"date":"2026-02-09T17:28:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T17:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/edward-still-watford-appoint-new-head-coach-to-replace-javi-gracia\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T17:28:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T17:28:14","slug":"edward-still-watford-appoint-new-head-coach-to-replace-javi-gracia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/edward-still-watford-appoint-new-head-coach-to-replace-javi-gracia\/","title":{"rendered":"Edward Still: Watford appoint new head coach to replace Javi Gracia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Still has managerial experience in the Belgian Pro League with Charleroi, KAS Eupen and KV Kortrijk.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He has also previously worked as assistant to his younger brother Will at French club Lens, guiding them to an eight-place finish in Ligue 1 in 2024-25.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Ed&#8217;s appointment was made on the conviction that this is a coach whose modern and progressive coaching methods fit perfectly with our squad dynamic, who we believe will take the team forward, and who gives us a real chance to challenge for the play-offs,&#8221; said Watford chairman and chief executive Scott Duxbury.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Former Bournemouth defender Charlie Daniels, who has been interim boss at Vicarage Road for the past two matches, will take on the role of first-team coach alongside Karim Belhocine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We are delighted Charlie Daniels has accepted Ed&#8217;s invitation to be part of his coaching staff, as we are really grateful for the job and work he did in the interim period,&#8221; said Duxbury.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;He quickly earned the respect of the technical department and the players, and his promotion maintains that link with the academy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Still becomes Watford&#8217;s third head coach this season with Paulo Pezzolano lasting only 10 games at the start of the campaign prior to Gracia&#8217;s reappointment, having previously left in 2019.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Hornets also had three bosses in the same season in 2021-2022 when  Xisco Munoz, Claudio Ranieri and Roy Hodgson took charge, and again in the following campaign when Rob Edwards, Slaven Bilic and Chris Wilder held the job.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Still is Watford&#8217;s 14th head coach, not counting interim bosses, since September 2019 when Gracia left for the first time, and their 11th since the end of the 2020-21 season.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/articles\/c3edqlvqyjyo?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Still has managerial experience in the Belgian Pro League with Charleroi, KAS Eupen and KV Kortrijk. He has also previously worked as assistant to his younger brother Will at French club Lens, guiding them to an eight-place finish in Ligue 1 in 2024-25. &#8220;Ed&#8217;s appointment was made on the conviction that this is a coach [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[1427,3814,7805,13659,13658,2223,7976],"class_list":["post-46400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-england","tag-appoint","tag-coach","tag-edward","tag-gracia","tag-javi","tag-replace","tag-watford"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46400"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46402,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46400\/revisions\/46402"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}