Watford and Gary Lineker have been engaged in a Twitter spat over a claim he made about Marco Silva’s sacking last year.
Silva was dismissed from his post with the Hornets a year ago today after just six months in charge and went on to take over Premier League rivals Everton.
And shortly afterwards Lineker publicly criticised the club’s decision to dismiss the Portuguese.
He tweeted: “Absurd decision, in my opinion, by Watford to fire Marco Silva after his first bad run.
“He’ll be snapped up very quickly and Watford will almost certainly get someone less talented.”
Watford are now significantly better off than they were at this point last term under Javi Gracia. They are up three places in seventh position and have seven more points.
And the social media team at Vicarage Road were on hand to smugly remind Lineker of his prediction 12 months on from Silva’s departure.
They quoted his tweet and wrote: “This aged well”.
But the former England striker was quick to respond to the jibe – labelling their tweet “disrespectful.”
He wrote: “Yes, football can and will prove us wrong on many occasions, and I’ve already stated that that may be the case again here, but the sacking of managers is not something I often support and do find this tweet rather disrespectful of your former manager.”
Everton boss Silva has had a difficult first season at Goodison Park.
The Toffees have won just two of their last ten outings and are 11th in the league.
Watford’s chairman and CEO Scott Duxbury publicly apologised to Lineker through the club’s official Twitter account.
He wrote: “Sorry, @GaryLineker, no offence meant to anyone. They got carried away celebrating when they realised the Head Coach had been with us for a whole year! I might be going through more Social Media Managers than Head Coaches soon. Yours, Scott Buxbury, Chairman & CEO.”