Given the recent announcement that Simon Newcombe has resigned from Arsenal, this has forced me to declare an interest in managing Watford earlier than I was intending. It also coincides with not logging on for a week or so and if it were the case that Simon or anyone else as a result of his resignation began applying for the vacant position at Watford then I would kick myself if an appointment happended when I wont be logging on.

As a result of the above I would formally wish to apply for the post of manager of Watford.

What can I offer them? I have experience of managing for a long time dating back to the original FA. I have managed both in England and Italy with a number of teams, many of whom have been on the fringes of a top flight league, and some of whom I have been successful in achieving promotion to either the Premiership (Middlesboro) or Serie A (Chievo). I have learned from these experiences and feel that I have the knowledge to ensure that Watford would have a good prospect of remaining a top flight team.

I have built a number of relationships with other managers throughout the game, and will continue to do so. (A couple of managers have kindly loaned me players in recent weeks and I want to apologise to them that if appointed then their players may not get the games they were expecting, but this application had been forced as a result of recent events alluded to above). If managers loaned players to me at Watford then they would play the games as promised. I would also make it a priority to ensure that young talent at Watford would not sit on the bench if they were not in the first team, but be loaned out, which is I believe in contrast to certain top flight English managers.

At Napoli I have reduced the overall age of the team significantly, which I feel is important for any side if they are going to improve rather than ending up with players who whilst they may be highly rated begin to decline to a point where they either retire themselves or become worthless. My philosophy is to attempt to avoid signing players because of their reputation alone, but to look at what they can give both now but also importantly in the long term to the club.

I feel that Watford already have some excellent players, but they clearly need some work to make them into a formidable team. Clearly their defence would need some new life breathing into it, and I would look to do that without making the mistake of paying over the odds, as I may have done in the past with a particular winger brought in during my time at Cardiff.

Overall I believe that I have the ability to make Watford a team that would be able to compete with a number of the teams in the Premiership, and I look forward to hearing from the Watford board regarding my application.

Thank you.