Watford manager Claudio Ranieri has backed William Troost-Ekong to emerge with fresh focus after his blunder that gifted Leicester City their opening goal at the weekend.
“It’s focus – focus on the match,” Ranieri told a press conference on Tuesday.
“That was a mistake because he thought he was alone and said ‘okay I’ll leave the ball to the keeper’ but the keeper didn’t ask for the ball.
” Now I’m sure it never never can happen again because it would be very strange if it happened another time.
Read Also: ‘I’ve Been Impressed With Bassey’ –Rangers Manager, Van Bronckhorst
” I’m sure Will will be very focused and very determined in every match we play.”
The Italian also said he and his players have been giving Troost-Ekong plenty of encouragement in the wake of the error, in order to help him react in a positive way.
“I think this is the right way,” he said. ”
“Also his teammates say ‘come on, that can happen’ we have to react.”
25 Comments
Mistakes are just part of football albeit painfully. Ekong the KING KONG still a very dependable defender. Proud of you Ekong and all DESERVING SE PLAYERS. ALL MANAGERS THAT HAVE TRUSTED THEIR CAREER ON YOU EVEN GOING ON TO MAKE YOU TEAM CAPTAIN, KNOW BETTER THAN US ARMCHAIR CRITICS.
To all those that were bashing Troost Ekong saying he was a bad player and should not be playing for Super Eagles, can you see how Ranieri is even supporting him. That is what you do.
That’s right, Glory.
It was a bad mistake, and Ekong will learn from it.
Kudos to Ranieri for the encouraging words.
Well, most of your arguments say it all. If you are not justifying why the country should not hire a white man (instead of advocating for a deserving person), you are condescending our foreign-born players. Apart from the fact that it’s completely illogical to consider race or colour when conceptualizing anything like this, reverse-racism helps no one. These things cloud almost all your judgments, and since this idea is not a norm in an intelligent caucus, you will rarely see very intelligent forumites engaging you. Imagine, if anyone asks you where there are defenders are better than Ekong, you will prolly say they are in the local league….lol
Obviously, you are more knowledgeable than Ranieri, Munoz, Rohr etc when it comes to football and coaching.
Ekong is a good defender. You can’t because of a couple of errors conclude that he is not a good defender. Even in the match Ekong made the worst of errors, he will still do a good job in the same match.
All players make mistakes. If footballer are rated by mistake, then no footballer will be deemed good because making mistakes is part of the game.
Your problem is that you only watch matches live, when tension and high BP won’t allow you to really understand and critically analyse a match
The coach is giving him support to recover from his constant blunder till Nkoulou comes back From injury. When he recovers fully. Ekong goes straight to Watford bench. Mark my words.
Kudos to Ranieri for backing him but the question is will Ekong improve? It is left to be seen. I’m all for an improved player but this guy has not raised his game despite playing in the Olympics, Serie A, Worldcup, and Nation’s cup….. So let’s see if this Ranieri support can ginger him but white people are sleek.. Ranieri might appear to Back him but planning to get another CB in January lol…let’s see.
Na you get sense. Chop knuckle my guy.
Loooool, na true sha. Ranieri may be posting us with this. The look on his face after Ekong’s mistake made me fear for Ekong. Ranieri looked ready to bite his head off!
It’s one of those things in life. You make a bad mistake, you learn from it, and you carry on.
Remember Ekong will leave for the Afcon in January so it’ll be easy for Ranieri to replace him and when he comes back he will have to fight for his place again lol.. Matches leading up to the Nations cup will determine if he is still favored. A sound Coach like Ranierie would not join fans to condemn his player…. He knows what it can do to the confidence and morale of that player.
He make two solid school boy mistake in that match, I just hope he adjust and move on before Ranieri convert striker to central defender ooo, Watford fans are really talking tough, like they don’t wanna see him in the line up anymore.
I also think Ranieri will buy a defender in January., but in reality Watford will struggle to remain in the EPL wether they buy another defender or not. That was a school boy error from Ekong, but we’ve seen worst mistakes from Yobo while at Everton. So I feel Ekong should be able to come back stronger from this setback. To be honest he didn’t really had a bad game, but that error proved costly. We don’t have many defenders in the EPL and the fact that he made it this far is quite remarkable. His major flaw as a defender is dealing with long balls to his box area. He always seems confused in those situations even for the SuperEagles. At this stage that is what he needs to improve and work on to be counted as one of our best defenders. Other than that he’s definitely a starter for the SuperEagles.
Watford’s attack is pretty good this season…. If they can tighten things at the back and with a proven coach like Ranieri who won the League with Leceister… I see them avoiding the drop but it’s going to be a fight tho especially when they lose their African contingent in January.
Hahahaha, I recall when Yobo’s back pass went over Baruwa into our net. One of the most spectacular own goals I’ve ever seen. If Yobo could bounce back from that, why not Ekong?
Like you mentioned, he had a decent game. He just has that one moment of calamity in him. A silly mistake, a moment of absent-mindedness. He needs to be more focused in matches.
Baruwa and Yobo Kwa?
Baruba’s last game for Nigeria was against Yugoslavian in 1998 when he committed an error by trying to dribble Mijatovic..the match ended 0-3 in favour of Yugoslavia and Yobo started playing a year after..Nigeria 99 under 20.
Dele Aiyenugba perhaps?
This is the match I was referring to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvXndQuysmI
Ekong no sabi. He plays football like agbalumo. He plays Kerewa Kerewa football.He is not a deserving Super Eagles player. Lolzzzz.
Nigeria should look for reliable defender because world cup is not anybody mate..
Watford’s attack is pretty good this season…. If they can tighten things at the back and with a proven coach like Ranieri who won the League with Leceister… I see them avoiding the drop but it’s going to be a fight tho especially when they lose their African contingent in January.
Ekong is below average
Sierra Leone coach exposed him in Benin. Can you imagine that because of Ekong, Moses Simon is forced to track back and be offensively useless. Only Collins and Balogun were enough on the left side with a false or no traditional
Ekong is not a quality defender, never been convincing
Troost is my guy anytime anyday. he will be fine. Good word from his gaffer.
Okay mistakes are part of the game but is he the best in that position for eagles presently? Clueless Rohr won’t bench him because of selfish reasons.
Ranieri said what he had to say. That’s professional reaction but the same ranieri has put him in the bench. When mistakes are too many you become a mediocre.
Sierra Leone coach exposed him in Benin. Can you imagine that because of Ekong, Moses Simon is forced to track back and be offensively useless. Only Collins and Balogun were enough on the left side with a false or no traditional left winger, yet most teams “do not” attack us from the left because of Balogun.
This made Iwobi free in our last match without having to track back on the left. But with two defensively minded holding midfielders, there is no need for Moses Simon to be defending all the time for crying out loud. But he does albeit Ekong is the weakest link. Collins who is a defender had an assist in Cabo Verde and Simon had none in 6 matches.
I may be wrong!