It was on the eve of Watford’s visit to Elland Road that Vakoun Bayo was unfavourably compared to a bowl of carrots.

Social media can be unforgiving. When it comes to attracting the ire of Watford fans, Bayo tends to be out front and centre.

Among other items deemed to be more potent attacking threats than the Ivorian were a traffic cone, a fridge and an abandoned mattress.

A well timed brace scored in a scintillating win over West Bromwich Albion will likely afford Watford’s number nineteen some brief respite from online ridicule.

Bayo’s footballing journey from the Ivory Coast to Hertfordshire has been a convoluted one. Starting out in Tunisia ‘the crow’ moved East to Slovakia and then on to Scotland.

From Celtic he went on loan to Toulouse, and then things became a little more complicated. And frankly a bit weird.

In July 2021 Vakoun signed for the Belgian side Gent. Barely five months into his four year deal he was sent on loan to Charleroi, who exercised their right to buy him.

The Belgian pro league club signed him on a permanent deal until 2026. Just two months later Bayo was on his way to Vicarage Road, this time in a five year deal with the Hornets. Only to be immediately loaned back to Charleroi.

Charlerio’s then sporting director was one Mehdi Bayat. His brother Arnaud was Bayo’s agent.

A prolific goalscorer is something that Bayo has never been in his career. On average, almost six hours of game time elapses before the crow finds the net.

Enough time to take in a Wagnerian opera, where in a similar vein to Bayo musicians engage in hours of industrious yet uninspiring toil interlaced with moments of sublime beauty.

Vakoun’s volleyed finish against Derby County was one such moment. Completing his hat-trick with an audacious lob at Hillsborough was another.

Bayo’s four goal salvo against Sheffield Wednesday was as unexpected as it was welcome. The Ivorian plundered as many goals in that single game against the Owls as he had mustered in his first full season at Watford.

At full time a beaming Bayo raised four fingers to supporters in the away end, a gesture Pep Guadiola would later imitate in more humble circumstances.

Having netted nine times already this season the clamour to find a replacement for Bayo has abated for now.

Yet with every lean patch attention turns to the struggles of a recent arrival at Vicarage Road, and to the departure of last season’s top scorer at the club.

Daniel Jebbison’s loan move from Bournemouth has had an inauspicious start. In his rare appearances for the Hornets the young Canadian has at times resembled a startled moose caught in the fog lights of a truck.

Manager Tom Cleverley cites a crisis of confidence as the root of the problem. The loanee appears out of sync with his team mates, a stranger to them and the football, ploughing his own lonely furrow in an alternate universe.

Conversely, the reputation of Mileta Rajovic has undergone something of a renaissance in his absence. Sent out on loan to Brøndby, the Dane is portrayed in some quarters as a sinned against outcast, forced to ply his trade in an unjust exile in Copenhagen.

Each goalless spell from Bayo sees Mileta’s stock increase, the Dane’s plodding sub mediocrity reimagined and repackaged into the very attributes that Watford need. Rajovic may well be a poacher of goals, but to observers in Denmark “his limitations are obvious”.

Whatever murmurings of discontent there may be in the stands at Vicarage Road, Bayo has the full backing of his manager. Cleverley enthuses about “his out of possession responsibilities…how good he is with his back to goal, and what a great character he is.”

“I couldn’t be more pleased for him as an individual” Cleverley said in relation to Vakoun’s recent flurry of goals.

In something of an understatement he added that “the unselfish nature of his game doesn’t always bring him praise”.

The crow may finally have landed. An ironic twist perhaps, given that he was sold to Udinese at the beginning of the season, before being immediately loaned back to Watford. While money moved, the crow, for now, stays put.

©Kickerbeat