Watford is slowly sending a message to the rest of the Premier League after shaking off their struggles and winning three of their last five games. They have been more effective and aggressive on the field and are hampering opponents down the stretch when it mattered most.
After a rough start through ten games in the season, most Premier League fans and analysts thought that the Hornets would just continue to simply sink down the bottom of the table. There was a small glimpse of hope in Quique Sanchez Flores’ lead, but then it failed in the end.
Since the beginning of the Nigel Pearson era (along with his best buddy Craig Shakespeare), the team has been nothing short of impressive as of late. Their wins have been definitely rocking the news and are leaving mouths wide open with shock.
Abdoulaye Doucoure feels the same hype. He believes that the team has really started to show its true colours on and off the field. Since that draw at home to Crystal Palace and the subsequent loss to Liverpool, the team has been seeing pitch black with a big mountain to climb.
After a huge run of three wins and a draw, things are finally starting to look good for the team that has been running out of time at first. That changed the pace and the landscape that the team has to move.
‘We need to forget the table when we are on the pitch and just play like a team. We need to look after ourselves and only look at the table after the game’, said Doucoure, who has been inspired as of late. ‘We need to fight and now all the other teams look at us and say, “Ah, they are coming back”. We have ended our struggle and are on a good run. We need to keep going until the end. Now everyone believes anything is possible’.
True enough, the team seems to have turned the tables and have put the odds in their favour. It seems that Pearson’s moral-based leadership with the team is finally paying off. He has got his players motivated and ready for action every single game.
Doucoure has changed a lot since Pearson came in. He was more efficient and played well when it comes to cutting passes and making plays without the ball to create open chances for himself and his teammates.
‘I used to play in this position when I was in France. Now Nigel is playing me in this position. I will play wherever but I’m pleased with this position as I can get forward and also get back to protect the midfield’, Doucoure said. ‘The spirt is fantastic and, as Troy said last week, we have energy to burn. You can see it in the pitch and we must keep going’.
Watford closed 2019 and opened the new decade with wins. It was impressive, and the fans at Vicarage Road were reading the latest news on the team’s win. It was one of those nights where the team gave everything they had on the field and came up with a win.
‘The team played so well. We deserved to win. We fight a lot, we are all together. It’s 10 points from 12 and we are so happy. We want to carry on. We managed the game well, everyone is committed with the team and we are showing it on the pitch’, said Doucoure. ‘We dropped too many points this year and now we are on a good run. We have to carry on, we have to push forward and get out of this position as soon as possible. Nigel is here to push the team, Craig (Shakespeare) as well and we are happy to have this kind of coach’.
Doucoure was not the only player to improve well off Pearson’s teachings. Gerard Deulofeu had one of the best games in his career in the team’s recent wins. The Spaniard was able to play excellent defence all around and even managed to contribute to the team’s main scoring.
Deulofeu was thankful for Pearson and believes that the new head coach’s insertion to the team was very timely.
‘He has changed a lot of things. If you play on the left wing you have to help your left back and I’m doing a good effort defending. We had to defend a little bit more because Traoré is amazing and I had to do it for the team. We are really organised on and off the pitch, like how we play with a high press all together’, said Deulofeu. ‘We defend with a good shape, creating chances on the wings too. It is tough to beat us, but we have to continue playing like this and not defend the whole game’.
Pearson has elevated the level of play in the Hornets’ playbook. The team has been nothing short of consistent and continues to play that way since Pearson revamped the playing style of the team. That eventually led to the team’s impressive run so far at this point of the season.
‘We are very, very happy because it was a tough period. The consecutive wins at home puts the team higher in the table, not at the bottom. Now we can achieve what we are working towards with this new manager’, said Deulofeu. ‘We play better and that’s why we are winning. We have to continue as nothing is done yet. The most important thing is how you finish, not how you start’.
As tough as it may seem, but the team still has a lot of work ahead of them, and they will need to continue to make a push out of the relegation if they want to continue to improve this season.
