Gianfranco Zola is forcing the summer’s foreign recruits at Watford to learn and speak in English, including those on loan from Granada.
The Italian himself was one of a number of arrivals at the English Championship outfit this summer, after the club was taken over by Giampaolo Pozzo’s family.
Pozzo also holds ownership in Udinese and Granada and transferred a total of 13 players from these two sides to the Hornets.
Zola is insistent that the new players, which included Granada’s on loan duo of Daniel Pudil and Ikechi Anya, integrate fully with the rest of the squad.
To action this desire, the former Chelsea man has introduced a time limit by which the players must be communicating at the club in English, or face fines.
“Well obviously at the beginning language might be a problem because some of the new players don’t speak English,” he told reporters over the weekend.
“But they know there is only a certain amount of time in order for them to learn how to communicate in English, because this is an English club and the official language is English. After that there will be some fines handed out.
“This is for communication off the pitch, because on the pitch we all speak the common language of football.
“It didn’t take Matej Vydra a long time to communicate with Mark Yeates or Jonathan Hogg – it took them 10 minutes of a game or 20 minutes of a training session for them to speak the same language.”
