C&P F'fishal site https://www.watfordfc.com/teams/men/players/ozan-tufan Ozan Tufan joined the Hornets in August 2021, on a season-long loan from Fenerbah*e with an option to buy. Tufan’s career began with Bursaspor in his home country before he moved to S*per Lig rivals Fenerbah*e in 2015. He went on to make 174 outings for the Istanbul side, while also spending a loan spell at Alanyaspor during the 2018/19 season. A holding midfielder with a range of passing and an eye for goal, Tufan made his international debut for Turkey in 2014 and has earned more than 60 caps for the nation.
There's a helluva lot of pressure on this guy turning out to be good. I have a bad feeling about this one.
I'd have him as a deep-lying playmaker (sort of like Hughes), and then Etebo ahead of him as a sort of poor man's Kante, and then Kucka or Sissoko alongside
Yeah it'll be interesting to see how Xisco uses him. This season he's gone with Etebo as a screen to mop up anything in front of the defence, but he might just be doing that because he hasn't had someone decent with the ball like Tufan.
I guess Xisco will stick with his three for the most part. Etebo as the guardian defensive anchor point. Then two from three. Kucka, Sissoko and Tufan. Depending on who we are playing. For stronger opposition go with two defensive orientated player namely Sissoko. And if not so strong go with Kucka/Tufan throwing in Louza as he gets up to speed. The fact is Etebo and Sissoko are comfortable at carrying the ball and we have a genuine goal scoring threat from midfield. All apart from Etebo are prepared to attack the box as we have seen several times already this season with Kucka and Sissoko on the end of cutbacks and crosses. Kucka and Tufan have that ability to score from range as well. So all in all for not much outlay and crossing our fingers there is little in the way of injuries we have improved midfield no end over what we had in the Chumpionship.
I think there are two reasons we should play Tufan, one, he has something that the other midfielders don't have, two, he'll throw a hissy fit if he doesn't play and put on 50 pounds lol
Not quite sure how much you can pin the blame on him against a better team, and down to 10 men! Hard to believe they beat the Netherlands and Norway at the beginning of this campaign, they have been utterly trash for a while now!
I am not - just saying it’s a game he won’t want to remember too much. Turkey certainly have had a tough run save for those 2 results .
"Hello, Watford fans". Good to see he's here at last. https://twitter.com/WatfordFC/status/1435664481238110211
Pretty good for him to get 45 mins in the tank though. I can’t imagine he’s played much if at all for a while. He seemed to fare better than a lot of his teammates too.
The T-shirt he is wearing in his arrival video is genuinely comical (and I say that as someone who has been known to wear the odd 'oversized' T or shirt jacket myself) Let's hope he's not using it to hide anything...
I quite like the three midfielders we played yesterday, but I don't think all of them together is suitable, I think we need to see what Tufan has to offer very soon. Expect to see him play against Stoke, maybe not the whole game, and then start against Norwich
He needs to be good because to me it's looking like Kucka's first performance might have been a false dawn. Plus we don't create **** all from midfield.
Agreed . We need someone who can dictate play . Etebo is a good holder . Sissoko is the muscle . But who can pick the pass ?
For me, even if Kucka's performance wasn't a one-off, Tufan needs to be good, because if he isn't, none of Kucka, Etebo and Sissoko are very creative
All that and I was ill and couldn't go lol. How did Tufan play anyway? Not to get all 'didn't want to win this game anyway', but surely Tufan's performance is the most important aspect of today
I thought he was absolutely fantastic. Potentially our best midfielder. Always wanting the ball, always driving forward. Good passing range, strong. They say the Turkish Pogba but he reminded more of a Steven Gerrard. I think he'll be a wonderful player for us, especially surrounded by better players than tonight.
Well, he only had a half, and fluffed some good opportunities, but dare I say the biggest positive from today? And to think he might not have got on if it weren't for a head injury to Cleverley!
Was very poor against a very good Norwegian side. Taken off around the 60 minute mark. Hopefully Ranieri likes Thorsby and we go back in for him in January because he has some engine on him, never stopped running and harrying the opposition. A few communication issues with Elyounoussi while in attacking areas. He would be a big plus in both areas and would definitely improve the midfield.
He's played the majority of every game for Samp so far, though - can't see Gino spending anything like the money required to poach an actually wanted player from a club of even relatively comparable means in Jan. Hence why our CB situation is so potentially alarming, even with Nicolas...
Very true. It was more in hope from me than logic. Even with the new fella we're down to three, two if he's not up to speed.
How much of that is down to Turkey being pretty shambolic in general at the moment? For all the supposed talent in that Turkey team, since the eye-catching results at the start of qualifying, they've been awful
Difficult to say tbh. Turkey easily beat them last time with Tufan scoring twice. But I believe it was the Norwegian managers first game in charge and they have progressed alot, even without a recognised striker playing against the Turks. They had Stefan Kuntz as manager so I'm not sure how long he's been manager for Turkey but as you said were shambolic. But Tufan was more of a midfield two than the furthest forward so that could have played apart.