Quique Sanchez Flores was doing so well at Watford this time last year that sat in a central London hairdressers he got a phone call from Elton John to congratulate him.
The season turned sour and he left in the summer but, as he takes his current side Espanyol to the Nou Camp on Sunday on a run of nine games unbeaten, he hasn’t ruled out a return to the Premier League one day, and doesn’t regret a single moment of his roller-coaster season.
In a interview for ‘Tales from the Vicarage’ a book chronicling Watford’s most successful campaign since the days of Graham Taylor, Flores – who admits to being one of Elton’s biggest fans and whose mum and aunt were both flamenco singers – talks about that moment when the club’s honorary life president offered him some much deserved praise.