Elton John 'Upset and Disappointed' as Watford Slump Deepens in 4-0 Burnley Rout
Former Watford owner Elton John has described himself as "upset and disappointed" with the club's form, speaking out publicly after the Hornets were thrashed 4-0 at home by a Burnley side sitting 22nd in the Championship table.
The defeat at Vicarage Road leaves Watford 20th in the second tier, having lost three consecutive league games and five of their past six. It is a collapse that has alarmed a man whose name is on a stand at the stadium.
John's message to supporters
In a now-deleted response to a club post on Instagram, the global music star did not hold back. "As a lifetime supporter of Watford FC, I am very upset and disappointed at the decline over the past few weeks," he wrote. "I really feel for the supporters who have to watch this."
The intervention carries particular weight given John's history with the club, but it also reflects the mood around a team that appears to be unravelling week by week.
How bad has it got?
Saturday's collapse was brutal. Watford were 3-0 down inside 25 minutes before going on to concede a fourth against a Burnley team that had won just one league match in 2026 — against Crystal Palace in the Premier League in February — and had not won an away fixture in almost a year.
Watford appointed Alessio Dionisi as manager in June on a two-year contract, making the Italian their 12th head coach — not including interim bosses — since the end of the 2020-21 season.
His side negotiated a challenging start to the campaign well, beating Southampton at Vicarage Road and then drawing away at Wrexham and at home to West Ham. But the form has since fallen away dramatically, with points picked up in just one of their subsequent fixtures: a 2-1 home win over Preston last month.
Two spells in charge
John, a childhood Watford fan, has owned the club twice. His first spell oversaw a 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 again in the mid-1990s and re-appointed Taylor, who guided the club into the Premier League in 1999 with successive promotions.
The 79-year-old, who released a book, Watford Forever, in 2024 detailing his relationship with the club, relinquished control of his boyhood side for a second time in 2002.
With a stand named after him at Vicarage Road and a lifetime of association behind him, his criticism will be hard for the club to ignore as the search for a response continues.