It’s fair to say that these days there’s a fair bit of needle between Crystal Palace and Watford, which was recently heightened by the whole ‘Harry the Hornet’ saga, and now Hornets skipper Troy Deeney has revealed the tactics employed by him and his teammates to rough up Eagles star Wilfried Zaha.
Zaha has been on the wrong end of a fair share of dubious challenges this season, and in the aftermath of Palace’s 2-1 defeat to Watford he passionately claimed that opponents intentionally set out to hurt him on the field of play, while he also called for referees to up their game.
It now appears that Zaha’s concerns have been confirmed by one of his opponents that day, fellow Premier League striker Deeney, who has since had this to say in a conversation with Chris Sutton on BBC Radio Five Live:
“If you were playing against him [Zaha], you stop him. You take it in turns of kicking him.
“I know no one wants to hear that, but you go; ‘You hit this time, you hit him the next time’. You don't have the same player tackle him because you know you're gonna get booked.
“It's difficult, but also as a captain I'd be the first... if we were playing him this week and he'd just said those comments I'd have been like: ‘Ref, don't you be the first one to give him a pen. Don't you start going easy on him’.
“You can then flip it and start being more psychological with the referees.
Deeney’s 4th-placed Watford head into Saturday’s clash away to in-form Arsenal - who the forward also has history with - looking to record their fifth win from seven Premier League games.
Meanwhile, Zaha will be eyeing up his fourth goal in six matches this season when Palace travel down to the south coast where they face Bournemouth (Monday).
