‘Not good for me’: Manager comments on captain’s future amid Tottenham links

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Reported Tottenham Hotspur and West Bromwich Albion target Troy Deeney could be about to leave Watford, with head coach Vladimir Ivic telling the Sun (15 September, page 49) that he won’t ‘keep someone who doesn’t want to stay’.

During a decade at Vicarage Road, the 32-year-old club captain has seen it all and done just as much.

But, after Watford were relegated following five years in the Premier League, Deeney is facing perhaps the toughest decision of his career.

Does the adopted Hornet walk away from the club he joined as a fresh-faced youngster back in 2010 or does he remain loyal to the cause and fire the Hertfordshire outfit back into the Big Time during Ivic’s first season at the helm?

The Watford Observer reports that West Brom are keen to bring the Birmingham-born forward back to the Midlands, while the chance to play under Jose Mourinho at a club the size of Spurs might never come around again.

What’s more, Deeney, who earns £100,000-a-week, still sees himself as a Premier League player, suggesting that a gruelling 46-game Championship campaign holds little appeal.

Ivic, who beat Middlesbrough 1-0 in the opening day of the Championship season, has little interest in keeping a player whose head has been turned.

“To keep someone who doesn’t want to stay or be with us is not good for me,” says the man who won the Israeli league title during the last two seasons with Maccabi Tel Aviv.

An old-school number nine who leads from the front with ferocity, Deeney could be the second-choice striker Spurs have been pining for ever since Harry Kane burst on to the scene five years ago.

He scored 47 goals in five years in the top flight, including ten in 27 games as Watford dropped out of the division in July.