F
or much of the 2021-22
season, Watford’s fate has
seemed set in stone.
The Hornets have spent
much of the campaign inside the
relegation zone, fighting the same
current that dragged them down to the
Championship just two years ago. It is
a battle that has claimed two different
managers and brought a third out of
prospective retirement; nevertheless,
it seems increasingly like a losing one.
The one shred of comfort in the
bleakness has come in the form of
Nigeria international Emmanuel Dennis.
The 24-year-old joined Watford last
summer from Belgian side Club Brugge,
following a disappointing loan spell in
the German Bundesliga with Cologne,
foramodest€4 million fee.
Fair to say, then, that expectations
were not overly high.
Yet Dennis has been a revelation.
In November he became only the
sixth player in Premier League history
tonotchatleastfivegoalsandfive
assists within his first12 matches. By
the middle of April he had scored or
assisted15 goals – half of Watford’s
total attacking output at the time.
For English fans, it has been quite
the introduction, both in terms of
impact and the speed of adaptation.
Interestingly though, Dennis has gone
about his integration rather counter-THE MENACE
Words:Oluwashina OkelejiEmmanuel Dennis has enjoyed a renaissance at
Watford after struggling to shrug off the “bad boy”
tag he earned in Belgium and Germany
intuitively: by refusing to immerse himself
in the social life of Hertfordshire.
“After training every day I just come
home with my friends. Sometimes we
go for a walk, sometimes we just play
games: we try to go bowling, just to
keep ourselves busy,” he tellsWorld
Soccer. “As a person, I’m a little bit
boring. I just stay home, watch movies
and play games. I hardly go out; I don’t
really fancy it that much. I can go out
maybe once or twice a month. Most
of the time, I have someone that
cooks for me.”
From this, a portrait begins
to emerge: that of a retiring, aloof
character with a small circle and an
aversion to the limelight. Repeatedly,
he stresses he is “not a guy that gives
interviews”, and he even says he is
perfectly fine letting people make
up their own minds about him.
However, over the course of his
career, this natural aloofness has come
to be mistaken for arrogance. He has
also acquired a “bad boy” tag, mostly on
account of an unfortunate bus incident
that took place at previous club Brugge.
Until that point, things had been
going well for the Adamawa-born
forward. His introduction to Europe
was a one-year stint in Ukraine with
Zorya Luhansk in 2016, which, while
difficult, left him with good memories.
“The weather was cold,” DennisSPECIAL
FEATUREDENNIS
recalls. “But, other than that, there were
nice guys in the team. The coach [Yuriy
Vernydub] was the same coach that
beat Real Madrid in the Bernabeu with
FC Sheriff. He was my first coach, and
he was a really nice person. He really
liked me. He said I was hard working, so
he gave me the opportunity I needed.
Those couple of months I played,
I scored a couple of goals. He gave
me confidence and helped me a lot.
And then I went to Club Brugge.”
In his maiden season in Belgium,
he helped the club win the league title,
scoring seven goals. However, it was
while playing for the erstwhile Belgian
champions in the Champions League
in 2019 that Dennis first made
international headlines.
During an away game against
Real Madrid in October of that year,
he hit a brace in a 2-2 draw. Beyond
contributing to a famous result for Club
Brugge though, it was his reaction that
most captured the imagination, pulling
out an imitation of Cristiano Ronaldo’s
famous “Siu” celebration in front of the
same Santiago Bernabeu crowd that
had cheered the Portuguese hero for
close to a decade before his departure
the year before.
As it happens, it was an offhand
discussion with fellow Nigeria forward
Victor Osimhen that prompted the
decision to celebrate in that fashion.