Watford of England central defender, William Troost-Ekong has admitted holding a very strong desire to help his club gain automatic promotion from the English Championship to the top-flight division at the end of the current season.
Megasportsarena.com reports that, although Watford have been inconsistent to a large extent so far this season, Troost-Ekong is staying upbeat about their chances of nicking a ticket to the English Premier League, which he says is top of his targets for the season.
The former Tottenham Hotspur of England youth team player, who has also starred in the past with Haugesund of Norway, Dordrecht of Holland, Bursaspor of Turkey, KAA Gent of Belgium and Udinese of Italy, added that The Hornets’ aim is to secure automatic promotion to the EPL.
With the club that also has Isaac Success on heir cards and used to pay the wages of Odion Ighalo now hitting some decent results in recent time and suddenly enjoying a run of impressive results, Troost-Ekong is excited that his team won their last four Championship games and have only lost one match in their last 10 league outings.
Those performances have seen Watford climb to the third spot on the league table with 60 points from 32 games, behind Brentford and Championship leaders Norwich City, such that Troost-Ekong now hopes The Hornets will secure the needed points during the regular season to secure promotion to the English top-flight without going through the playoffs.
Watford will take on seventh-placed Bournemouth in Saturday’s Championship game and Troost-Ekong has urged his side not to underestimate The Cherries, ahead of which the Super Eagles vice-captain described the atmosphere at Vicarage Road as buzzing with the right mentality for victory.
Troost-Ekong, who has played 21 league games for Xisco Munoz’s men since teaming up with the club from Udinese last summer, told The Hornets’ website: “The boys are really enjoying themselves.
“When a team is mentally strong it is easy to get up for games and get to your best level if you are feeling good (but) there is still a long way to go and we have to play Norwich and all the teams around us.
“I still think it’s difficult to say how many points we will need for automatic promotion. In the past it’s been between 75 and 90 points, so we want to reach that level before we start looking around at others.
“We’ve got a board up and just crossing off the wins we think we need. I know it’s a cliche, but we are taking each game as it comes and the coach is hammering that into us. We aren’t looking at any calculations.
“It’s a massive game. Everyone probably highlighted this game at the start of the season and it still feels the same. Bournemouth are going through a rocky spell and they’ve had a change of manager, but we can’t think like that as that’s when banana skins come out.
“They are a quality team and every Championship game is hard. They have suffered some difficult moments, but they see this as a final as we do. If we win this game we can really get a gap between us. It’s going to be a massive game.”
