Watford confirmed their updated squad list after the January transfer window closed and it included one new addition to the list, Adalberto Penaranda. The attacker from Venezuelan was on loan to KAS Eupen for the first half of the season but only managed to feature five times for the club and could not score a goal. Head coach Nigel Pearson said he was pleased to have Penaranda back and described the player as “talented” and “likeable” but refused to clear the air on the cancellation of his loan.
Nigel Pearson said: “I don’t need to clarify anything, He’s one of our players and he’s back with us at the moment and he’s in a training programme. I’ve spoken to him through an interpreter, he’s a very likeable lad, he’s a very talented boy and we’ll see what happens over the forthcoming weeks. ecause he’s one of our players, he’ll be treated in exactly the same way. We’ll give him the support that every other player that we’ve got gets, but there’s no doubt he’s a fabulous talent.”
It will be interesting to see if the striker can make it to the 18 man squad against Brighton as Watford try and pick up their form once again. With matches against Manchester United and Liverpool coming up, the Hornets would be hoping to take all three points against Brighton in their match this weekend.
Watford manager Nigel Pearson welcomed the move to revert back to the old system of the summer transfer window where the premier league clubs could conduct their business till the end of August instead of till start of the season as was the case in the last two seasons. Almost all the clubs had complained of the fact that they had to overpay for their targets considering that they were forced to make their business early and then had a 20 day period where their players could leave for European leagues but the English club could not replace them.
Nigel Pearson said “The fact we come into line with the rest of Europe makes it even. The downside is the irritation of having players involved in potential moves when the season starts. In terms of what is important in my current world, that doesn’t rank very highly at the moment.”
The only business Watford manage to do in the late part of the summer transfer window of this season was loan moves to and from Udinese. The Serie A club owned by the same Pozzo family as Watford.
Watford manager Nigel Pearson wants to ease the goal burden on his talisman and club captain Troy Deeney and has urged his team to share the goals around. Since Pearson took over the job at Watford, only two players have scored more goals than Watford captain. Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero and Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah have scored seven in this period with Deeney having netted five times.
Nigel Pearson said “What you have to remember with someone like Troy is that he is a very difficult customer. He is somebody who does score goals and his record is very good but on top of that he is game-effective too, when I think about how he occupies more than one player at a time. But the bottom line is that we need to find goals throughout the squad. You have to accept that players will get themselves into scoring positions, and generally speaking, Troy does do that. But we need to find ways of other people contributing too, and that is an ongoing process which we are trying to find the answers to.”
Lack of goals from the other areas of the pitch means Watford are currently the second-lowest ranking club in terms of goals scored this season. They have scored 23 goals in the 25 matches, just one more than Crystal Palace.
Nigel Pearson was only interested in his side winning after throwing away good starts in the previous two league matches. Leads against Aston Villa and Everton meant nothing as the Hornets lost both the matches to slip back into the relegation zone.
Nigel Pearson said “What do I want to do, play well or win games? I think the preferential thing would be to win games. It’s always nice to play well and win, but in our current situation, we’ve just got to find the answers to getting results and getting back to winning ways and that’s what we’ll try and do at the weekend. Whenever you deal with results that are probably not what you would like them to be there’s got to be a time to move on and providing that we all understand what the situation is and we talk about what’s not quite happened for us, it’s always about them moving on and getting the prep right for the next game and that’s the message now.”
Going into this weekend’s clash, Watford is 19th in the table but crucially just three points behind their opponents Brighton. A win would go a long way into Watford’s chances of surviving this season.
