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Watford of England defender, William Troost-Ekong will have a lot to worry about heading into the Super Eagles’ camp early next week, as he was absent from his club’s matchday roster for their English Premier League fixture on Tuesday.
Megasportsarena.com reports that the Eagles’ vice-captain has faced a lot of knocks for shaky form of recent, which placed him top of the worries most Nigerian fans are harbouring about their national team’s defence heading into the Africa Cup of Nations.
Troost-Ekong’s absence was in stark contrast with in-form attacker, Emmanuel Bonaventure Dennis, who struck another goal home for The Hornets, but it was not enough to save his side from losing scandalously at home against West Ham United in the English Premier League.
Despite Dennis opening scoring at Vicarage Road in blistering style, glory went to The Hammers, as West Ham bounced back from Emmanuel Dennis’ third-minute opener to ease to a dominant 4-1 win at Watford and cut the gap to the top four to four points.
Dennis’ self-made fourth minute stunner, which is his eighth goal of the season, appeared to answer any questions over whether the Hornets would be rusty in their first game for 18 days.
However, the bright performance the goal encouraged never materialised and the Hammers were soon in full control to raise the pressure on Claudio Ranieri, whose side have now lost their last five games.
Said Benrahma’s warning shot against the woodwork served as anything but as the home side hung on against mounting West Ham pressure, but eventually their defences were finally breached as Tomas Soucek fired in Jarrod Bowen’s slide-rule pass to level (27).
Less than two and a half minutes after they had led, Watford were behind. Michail Antonio’s run to the byline gave him time to look up and find Benrahma, who went one better from his earlier effort and beat Daniel Bachmann courtesy of a kind nick off Adam Masina (29).
Only a generous VAR decision stopped Watford falling further behind three minutes into the second half when Soucek was penalised for a soft foul several seconds before adding what he thought was West Ham’s third.
Another decision from the video assistant made amends for the visitors as Bachmann was judged to have fouled Bowen in the box, and captain Mark Noble sealed victory from 12 yards (58) before Nikola Vlasic rounded off a superb afternoon for the Hammers in added time with a simple finish (90+4).
Watford remain outside the bottom three but they have not picked up a single point since costing Ole Gunnar Solskjaer his job against Manchester United on November 20, while West Ham jump above Tottenham into fifth, four points off Arsenal in the final Champions League spot.
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