Fans of Nottingham Forest have been debating on Twitter whether central midfielder Ben Watson deserves a contract extension in the event of the club’s promotion.
The 34-year-old, who signed for Forest from Watford in 2018, has started 100% of Nottingham Forest’s Championship games this season, as well as playing in 99% of all minutes available.
In his 34 league appearances, Watson has scored three goals and provided three assists, earning him an average WhoScored match rating of 6.91, enough to rank him as Forest’s sixth-best player of the season so far.
Watson’s strengths are predominantly his interceptions – averaging 1.7 per game – and his passing – averaging four long balls and 0.6 key passes per game – meaning that he is well-suited to Sabri Lamouchi’s counter-attacking style of football.
Despite his impressive statistics and apparent importance to Lamouchi’s system, some Forest fans are not convinced that Watson will be up to Premier League standards should they achieve promotion this year, while others believe that his contributions this season alone are deserving of a contract extension, regardless of Forest’s promotion hopes.
https://twitter.com/CityGroundHQ/status/1231853321205493765
If we go up Watson will have made a massive contribution, same with Ameobi. And if we dont go up this year both will contribute next year. So both should get year extensions now imo. We can always loan them out if we go up so no brainer they need rewarding
— Kev Cobra (@kev_cobra) February 24, 2020
Why not, been consistently good, only a couple of average performances
— micky Postles (@forestlad60) February 24, 2020
On current form SL is 100% correct, all #nffc efforts should be focused on making the playoffs first, talking about new contracts etc can wait until the summer, with only 12 games left, a run of 1 win in 5 needs to be turned around quickly.
— Red Dog Macca (@halftimepies) February 24, 2020
No because the league would be to much of a stretch for him. Good player in championship doesnt convert to premier league
— John Price (@JPLPrice) February 24, 2020
I would say yes. Currently Sow is fragile so if we do go up and get another DMF Sow and Watson could alternate
— Mike Patch (@MPatchitt) February 24, 2020
Yes
— Rob ???? (@RobFTID62) February 24, 2020
What do we think?
Arguably, if Forest do achieve promotion this season, then a player with the characteristics of Watson will likely be even more important to Sabri Lamouchi.
The Frenchman does not tend to concentrate on retention of the ball (which is evident by way of Forest’s average possession statistics of 47.3%), but rather intercepting opposition play. Forest average 17.6 tackles and 9.8 interceptions per game – before typically attacking through either a long ball, short quick passes or runs from deep – they average 28.6 accurate long balls, 249.3 accurate short passes and 9.6 dribbles per game.
Should Forest achieve promotion, it is likely that their possession statistics will decrease further as the quality of opposition improves, thus potentially putting greater emphasis on their counter-attacking play.
In Ben Watson, Lamouchi has a player who clearly fits this system, and despite his advancing years, possesses Premier League experience that the Forest squad desperately lack.