Ahead of Norwich City’s Premier League game against Watford on Friday night, Watford Observer reporter Ryan Gray tells canaries.co.uk all about the Hornets.
canaries.co.uk: Watford drew their last game at Newcastle United with a late equaliser, how are things going at the moment?
RG: Newcastle were pretty poor and Watford will feel they possibly could have got more from that game. They seemed to have a bit of fear going into the game and they start to play with a bit of freedom if they concede.
I think they need to harness that freedom and learn how to play like that from the start of games. It will have given them some confidence to have stopped the run of defeats in the way that they did it so dramatically at the end.
canaries.co.uk: Tomorrow’s a big game for both teams and Watford will be looking to pull away from the relegation zone.
RG: That’s it, they’re just hovering above the bottom three and want to put a bit of distance between themselves and those teams creeping behind them. They’ve not been able to do that and they’ve been quite lucky really, having gone on that run of defeats, to avoid dropping into the bottom three.
Now, it’s a case of making the most of that and being able to pull away a bit.
canaries.co.uk: Was it frustrating to have the game cancelled against Burnley during the week?
RG: The only frustration was how late it was cancelled, sort of 10pm the night before. Ranieri has said he wasn’t too bothered. They had three debutants playing in the Newcastle game and it’s given them a bit more time to work with those players and come up with a game plan for Norwich and to recover from that game against Newcastle.
Travelling up to Newcastle, then coming back to Watford, then going back up to Burnley is never going to be ideal, so they’ve been given a bit of a reprieve with that game. It’s not ideal because they’ll have to play it at some point in the future but this week was a particularly bad time for it to be scheduled on and I think they were a little bit relieved not to make that trip to Lancashire.
canaries.co.uk: On those three January signings, tell us more about what you saw from them against Newcastle.
RG: They were hugely needed because Watford have been poor defensively, not just this season, but for quite a while really, in need of some reinforcements. What they bring is left-sidedness, which Watford didn’t have at all before.
Now they’ve got a new left-back (Hassane Kamara), a left-footed central defender (Samir) and in front of them a new defensive midfielder (Edo Kayembe). Before him, Imran Louza was that only type of midfielder they had and he’s now out at the African Cup of Nations with Morrocco.
Other than him, they were all kind of similar, so he provides something a bit different that they didn’t have before, dropping deep and sitting in front of the defenders to collect the ball and bring it out from the back and try to change the defensive notion into an attacking one. That’s something they’ve needed. For Watford to have brought them in the first week of the transfer window is really good business.
canaries.co.uk: How much of an impact has AFCON had, as well as Ismaila Sarr’s injury?
RG: Considering the amount of African players they’ve got, the situation could be much worse than it actually is. Sarr is a miss but Emmanuel Dennis has been playing brilliantly.
Joao Pedro in recent weeks has really made the most of his opportunities, so it’s not as bad as it could be. They’re doing very well considering the situation that they could be in.
canaries.co.uk: In goal, Ben Foster has replaced Daniel Bachmann again, why do you think that is?
RG: That was probably always Ranieri’s plan. He seems to trust Foster a bit more to play the ball out from the back. Bachmann’s a good shot-stopper but his distribution and all-round play isn’t as accomplished as Ben.
He sometimes has a bit of reluctance to come off his line and has made one or two mistakes, whereas with Ben you know what you’re going to get. He’s very reliable and solid and experienced, which they need at the back to keep the defence organised.