•  Watford’s disappointing 11th-placed finish last season calls for improvement in the Championship this year.
•  Valerian Ismael, the Hornets’ new manager, has made several signings in the summer transfer market.
•  Maduka Okoye and Kwadwo Baah are two players who could potentially leave the club before the end of the transfer window.

Watford will be hoping for a much-improved campaign in the Championship this season.

The Hornets were widely expected to be among the promotion contenders last season, but they recorded an incredibly disappointing 11th-placed finish.

It was another year of managerial instability at Vicarage Road, with Rob Edwards, Slaven Bilic and Chris Wilder all struggling to improve Watford’s fortunes.

Former Barnsley and West Bromwich Albion boss Valerian Ismael has taken charge of the Hornets, becoming the 19th permanent manager appointed by the Pozzo family since their takeover in 2012.

Ismael has been active in the market this summer, bringing in Tom Ince, Rhys Healey, Jake Livermore, Matheus Martins, Jamal Lewis and Giorgi Chakvetadze.

But Watford will be without Joao Pedro and Ismaila Sarr after the pair joined Brighton & Hove Albion and Marseille respectively, while there have been a number of other departures, including Britt Assombalonga, Leandro Bacuna, Craig Cathcart, Tom Cleverley, Dan Gosling, Mario Gaspar, Domingos Quina, William Troost-Ekong, Christian Kabasele, Ashley Fletcher and Joao Ferreira.

With just under a month remaining in the transfer window, we looked at who else could be heading out the exit door at the club.

Which Watford players will surely leave by 11pm on September 1st?

Maduka Okoye

Goalkeeper Okoye joined the Hornets from Sparta Rotterdam for a fee of £5 million last January.

Okoye was immediately loaned back to the Dutch outfit for the remainder of the 2021-22 campaign, but since his arrival at Vicarage Road, he has struggled for game time.

The 23-year-old made just two appearances last season, with both coming in cup competitions and he was frequently left out of the matchday squad altogether in the second half of the season as Ben Hamer was preferred as back-up to Daniel Bachmann.

Bachmann has signed a new five-year contract and has been appointed as the club’s new captain, so it is almost certain that he will remain first choice and the fact that Okoye was not given a squad number suggests he is not part of Ismael’s plans.

The Hornets are unlikely to be able to recoup the money they paid for Okoye, but it is a move that has not worked out and his departure would be beneficial for all parties.

Kwadwo Baah