Watford may be considered rank outsiders Saturday’s FA Cup final but Troy Deeney has promised to cause problems for Manchester City, insisting that he has the skill set to give Vincent Kompany and his treble-chasing rearguard a torrid afternoon.
City kept 20 clean sheets in their league campaign, conceding only once in each of the months of March, April and May, but the Watford captain insists that Pep Guardiola’s much-lauded side will not have it easy.
“I think if I play well they’ll have had a very difficult day,” he said. “If there’s a lot of crosses in the box, as much as I really respect Mr Kompany, he would say it’s not going to be an easy day. If I’m on my A-game it’ll be very difficult for whoever’s playing.”
Deeney is particularly relishing the prospect of a reunion with Kompany, saying the pair have “a lot of respect for each other” even if so far in their careers the Belgian has always prevailed. On the six occasions that the two players have faced each other the centre-back not only has a 100% win record, he has actually outscored Deeney 1-0.
The Englishman did get a goal and an assist the last time the teams met in the FA Cup, five years ago, but neither happened while Kompany was on the pitch: the Belgian came off the bench at half-time with his team 2-0 down and inspired them to win 4-2. Deeney has additionally played four games against City that Kompany has missed through injury, also all lost.
“You’ve got to look at how many times he’s broken down injured,” the Watford captain said of his City counterpart. “How easy would it have been for him to just give up, or just go: ‘Right, it’s not for me’? But every time he comes back and he comes back bigger, better and stronger. He’s an absolute beast of a man and if you can’t respect that then you’ve got something wrong with you.
“Based on the conversations we’ve had he knows that whenever we’re going up against each other it’s going to be a real battle, and neither of us are ever going to back down from one another. When you talk about bullying I always go back to when I was at school, a bully was a big kid picking on a little kid. We’re both 6ft and pretty wide so I don’t really class it as bullying, but we’re definitely going to have a few battles and whoever comes out on top will have a massive impact on the game, I think.”
Though Watford’s record against the top six this season has been poor, Deeney insists it “is not reflective of the performances”. “We’re not a bad outfit, we’ll give anyone a game and on our day we can beat anyone,” he said. “And that’s what we need to do: we need to have our day and hope that Man City have an off day.”
Deeney will have plenty of support at the game, and not only from Watford’s fans: he has bought 67 tickets and hired a box to accommodate his friends and family. “If I win I get to pick up a trophy in front of my mum, which is massive,” he said. “I haven’t done that since I was about 12. To be honest I don’t want to look that far ahead. I’m just doing all the work I have to do now to make sure that I am able to perform to a level that’s acceptable.”