Head coach Valerien Ismael was staying tight-lipped in his press conference today about whether on-loan striker Emmanuel Dennis would start against Huddersfield tomorrow.
The Nigerian international has played 112 minutes of football since returning to Vicarage Road, all of them from the bench.
His season started in Turkey with Basaksehir, but he didn’t complete a full 90 minutes in any of his eight outings for them – and prior to moving to Watford last month he hadn’t played at all since November 12.
Dennis played half an hour in the games with Cardiff, Leicester and Norwich, but his performance in the latter drew criticism from Ismael and consequently Dennis only came on in the 86th minute at Rotherham last week.
Now, though, with a clear week of training and no midweek matches, the striker could be ready to start tomorrow.
Ismael was giving nothing away though.
“Let’s see. Tomorrow we will see,” he said.
“He’s had four weeks with us now and that is a bit like a pre-season.
“Normally if you ask me in pre-season how long it takes to get a player on the right path I would say it would take five to six weeks.
“We have had four weeks but he has trained with consistency every week, and we can see his improvement.
“Now we just need to keep pushing.”
Defender Jeremy Ngakia returns to the squad having not featured since the reverse fixture at Huddersfield in early November.
Striker Vakoun Bayo will miss out through injury though and Ryan Porteous is completing a two-game ban.
“I’m pleased that Jez has joined the team for training for the last two weeks,” said Ismael.
“He played 45 minutes last weekend of an Under-21 friendly, and he has trained all this week without any issues.
“We are pleased that he’s available to be selected.
“Bayo will need more time. We expect him to be back with the team next week.
“At the minute all the signs are that he will be ready for next week.
“The only player with Bayo definitely missing the game tomorrow will be Porteous as he is still suspended for one more game.”
Tomorrow’s visitors to Vicarage Road have a new manager in the shape of Andre Breitenreiter.
“It’s not the first time it’s happened to us this season,” Ismael pointed out.
“In this case I think it’s not that bad because I’d say we know Huddersfield better than him because we have faced them and seen them throughout the season.
“We know their squad and what they can do with it, and we know the way their new manager played with his previous team.”
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