Deulofeu has been a winger his whole career. He is a natural wide player. Has the dribbling ability and pace to fly past people.
Deulofeu back on the wing, go back to a more natural 4-4-2 and bring Deeney in alongside Success. Deeney played his way back into the team with his cameo on Saturday IMO. Being out of the team for a few weeks won’t do Hughes any harm whatsoever. You could also play 4-5-1 and keep Chalobah in the side along with Doucoure and Capoue - issue with that being that none of them are really attacking enough.
Ok yes makes sense. 442 sounds good though given its Liverpool may want to just play with one out and out striker?
Would much rather try Hughes in a central three in front of Capoue and Doucouré than play Chalobah next to them - the striker would be so isolated.
Yes but the cautionary thing in that is that it would be a big decision to drop Chalobah after one game and could affect his confidence. IMO he should be given a chance to stake his claim for a place in the team. And also negates the initial discussion of Hughes sitting a few games out. Pereyra and Deulofeu would be given more license to stay towards the final third and support the striker, which is ideal for both given their defensive abilities (although Pereyra has improved that massively in recent weeks, but Deulofeu clearly hates having to track back!).
The problem Watford have, and it's a good problem, is their midfielders are far too good not to play. Capoue's form has catapulted himself into a first team starter. This places pressure on Chalobah who has been injured. Once fit, Chalobah also has to play, so does Doucoure, so does Hughes and so does Cleverley once he's fit. It's clearly a luxury Watford cannot really afford to have. Chalobah will not accept a fringe roll at the club. After all that's why he swapped Chelsea for Watford in the first place, for first team football. The more I think about it, the more I think Doucoure will be off, but right now timing is not perfect until Chalobah is up to speed.
I don't think he's anywhere near as good as Doucoure or Chalobah (when fully fit), and Capoue is one of the first names on the team sheet this season. I think he's going to struggle to get a game.
Would be very surprised if Doucoure is still here in Jan. It makes good sense to sell him at a January premium rather than the summer. It still leaves us with 3 high quality CMs battling for 2 spots (4 if you include Hughes as CM) as well as Wilmott and Quina as cover.
I think we accidentally took Alex Pritchard back on the coach with us instead of him after the Huddersfield game.
Oh, um, must've been that Huddersfield pulled a fast one then and smuggled Hughes on to their coach, leaving us with Pritchard and hoping that by the time we noticed it'd be too late.
I disagree. It's a squad game and he's a good player. When you think about the Man City game and the run we're on just now, I'd have a fully fit Cleverley in the very next line up without question. It's times like this that you need your 110 percenters to dig you back into form. Doucoure is ready to be benched for a spell, for his own good.
Some excellent touches yesterday. Great commitment and looks ever so better when he plays centrally. Well taken goal after the disappointment of the miss last week. He's a pretty resilient lad.
I mentioned on the shoutbox that he looked really pissed off the have seen thee final whsistle from the bench...
A very good player - just not a winger. Probably be the best CENTRAL midfielder in the Championship if we went down..
Oh we'd play him there in the Championship as we'd have a different coach. We are currently playing slow attacking midfielders as wingers and complaining about a lack of width.
I was just about to post the same thing. He was lively and took his goal well. But he only found a teammate with 19 passes yesterday. Compare that with Pereyra who managed it 44 times.
Not often you hear from Will Hughes but he has had a strong view on Trump. https://mobile.twitter.com/wjhughes...o/iframe/twitter.min.html#1268942830631780354 Gone unnoticed on social media. Rather different outcome had it been Troy Deeney!
Up for an England call : https://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/s...-england-will-take-note-watford-performances/
It's a place we seem to be producing more and more decent players now, but why not give Hughesy a whirl? Far worse players have played for England, Chalobah got a game when he basically hadn't played for us for yonks. Like Chalobah, he played for the U21s under Southgate, so must be somewhere in the picture