Rewind six months and you would have been hard-pressed to find a Watford fan who was feeling comfortable.
 |  I want to become a top manager - at the minute I'm not. I'm worse than average |
The struggling Hornets had just replaced recently-sacked boss Ray Lewington with Leeds coach Adrian Boothroyd. The appointment of an unknown 34-year-old - the youngest boss in the Football League - was a bold move. But with the club in the thick of a relegation battle, some felt it was foolhardy.
Yet in the half-year since then, Boothroyd has already started to fulfil chairman Graham Simpson's insistence that the Yorkshireman had the "potential to become a great new, young manager".
This season the Hornets lie in fifth place in the Championship after 11 games and are in the Carling Cup third round, courtesy of an impressive win against in-form Wolves.
But there is no danger of the affable Boothroyd letting the club's good start go to his head.
He told BBC Sport: "I am getting better. I want to be the best I can be and become a top manager. At the minute I am not. I am worse than average.
"So I'll keep listening to people's advice and I'll keep learning from my mistakes - and there are plenty of them.
"And I'll deal with the crowd when they turn on me - and they may well do that - and I'll deal with the crowd when they chant my name, which they have been doing a lot recently.
"I don't get excited because I know that football can be a fickle game."
Boothroyd certainly did not take the easy route when he moved to Watford in March.
He had seven games to avoid the drop into League One - and lost the first three.
| BOOTHROYD'S WATFORD RECORD Played 20 Won 9 Drawn 4 Lost 7 |
Things have improved since, with only four defeats in the next 17 matches.
"I think - and I am sure I will think this more when I get older and greyer - that it was the best possible start for me. I was immediately under a lot of pressure," he said.
"I lost the first three games and it could have gone the other way but, fortunately, the people here at the time pulled together and we managed to pull through and stay up.
"When you are under that kind of pressure, you get to see a lot more about people and personalities than you do if things are rosy.
"It enabled me to have a look at people under pressure, to see who went into their little cliques, to see who was with me, who was not - and I was able to make those changes that I felt needed to be made."
Boothroyd frequently speaks about his desire to learn in his new job - although he freely admits that some discoveries have been more pleasant than others.
"Transfer negotiations were a real eye-opener. Probably the worst part of the job so far, if there is a bad part, is having to deal with agents," he revealed.
| If we were already a very good team it would be boring |
"The most ridiculous thing is that some people phone you up and start talking about football and they have not got a clue what they are talking about.
"I found that hard to deal with but everybody has a part to play in this fantastic game and it is about me learning to overcome that."
Overcoming hurdles, however, is something at which Boothroyd is proving adept and he is relishing the prospect of further challenges ahead.
"If we were already a very good team it would be boring," he said.
"Part of the enjoyment is the journey of getting better. We have to get better because at the moment we are only average, we are only fifth.
"Individually, we must set ourselves high standards and as a group we must make sure we get the best out of everyone.
"By doing that we will become a very good team in this division. At the minute we are some way off - and that is exciting for me."
MMIX
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