Former Watford owner Elton John has said he is “upset and disappointed” by the club’s form following their 4-0 home loss to 22nd-placed Burnley.<\/p>\n
The Hornets sit 20th in the Championship table having lost three straight league games and five of their past six.<\/p>\n
In a now-deleted response to a club post on Instagram, external<\/a>, the global music star said: “As a lifetime supporter of Watford FC, I am very upset and disappointed at the decline over the past few weeks.<\/p>\n “I really feel for the supporters who have to watch this.”<\/p>\n Watford appointed Alessio Dionisi as their manager in June<\/a> on a two-year contract, with the Italian becoming their 12th head coach, not including interim bosses, since the end of the 2020-21 season.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n They have picked up points in just one of their subsequent fixtures, beating Preston 2-1 at home last month.<\/p>\n They were 3-0 down inside 25 minutes on Saturday, going on to lose to a Burnley side<\/a> who had previously won 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.<\/p>\n Childhood Watford fan John has had two spells as the owner of Watford, initially overseeing 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.<\/p>\n Returning to takeover the club in the mid-1990s, he re-appointed Taylor, who took the club into the Premier League in 1999 with successive promotions.<\/p>\n The 79-year-old, who released a book, Watford Forever, in 2024 that detailed his relationship with the club and has a stand named after him at Vicarage Road<\/a>, relinquished control of his boyhood side for a second time in 2002.<\/p>\n