MY HEAD COACH AND ME

Deeney consults sports psychologist to help him through the rough times

TROY DEENEY has turned to counselling from a sports psychologist to help him through his leanest year at Watford.

Fourth on the Hornets’ all-time scoring chart with 109 goals in all competitions, Deeney has suffered a chequered season, sitting out seven games through suspension since November 5 and finding the target only three times.

Watford’s long-serving captain, with 256 appearances since 2010, has also been forced to job-share with £18million record signing Andre Gray as the lone striker in head coach Marco Silva’s reign.

And Deeney, linked with Newcastle and West Brom this month, has revealed he is consulting a psychologist to navigate his most difficult season on the pitch at Vicarage Road.

He said: “Football is a tough test of your mental resolve. I have a chat each week with a sports psychologist and he gets to see that vulnerability that’s within all professional sports people. It also saves my family, the missus in particular, from getting a full download every day.

“Everyone will have their own way of separating home and work life. It’s important to me because I’m the kind of person that likes to enjoy my football.

“I’ve got the best job in the world – but people have probably seen the serious side of me lately that likes to be winning and scoring.

“That’s where I feel I’m getting back to. It can take me a while to build into a season sometimes. It’s been true of previous years.

“But when I’m up and running, and I’m at full pace, I’m difficult to handle. There’s a bit of arrogance in there at times.”

In his programme notes at the weekend, when he sprang from the bench to help Watford rescue a point against Southampton after trailing 2-0, Deeney shrugged off the latest transfer speculation about his future as seasonal conjecture. Newcastle are thought to have baulked at Watford’s £20m asking price, and although West Brom manager Alan Pardew is interested in repatriating Deeney closer to his Midlands home, there is no chance of the Hornets selling unless they have signed an oven-ready replacement.

Deeney, 29, admitted: “It wouldn’t be January – or any other transfer window, for that matter – without some chat about my future here. “It hasn’t always been like that my whole time at Watford, because I was a lollipop-shaped head on a stick stuck out on the wing when I first joined. But I’ve learned to deal with everything as a day-by-day matter and not to be distracted from doing my work properly.

“What will be will be, and it’s the job of every pro at every club to get on with it and do what they are paid to do.”

Deeney’s season was interrupted by a retrospective three-match ban for gouging Stoke midfielder Joe Allen’s cheeks (left), an incident which the Hornets’ skipper admitted had reawakened a few “demons” from his past.

And then he was hit by a fourmatch suspension after being sent off against Huddersfield for a rash tackle on Collin Quaner.

Watford’s appeal against referee Michael Oliver’s red card was rejected, despite their protests that worse tackles by more illustrious players in other Premier League games the same day had not invoked the same punishment.

Since Deeney’s disciplinary interludes, the Hornets have taken only 11 points from 13 games and Portuguese boss Silva is under mounting pressure to arrest the slide.