Troost-Ekong in contention to face Manchester City

William Troost-Ekong has returned to training ahead of Watford’s Saturda trip to league leaders, Manchester City.

Ekong was ruled out of the Hornets’ last game against Brentford as a result of slight hamstring complaints.

He has made 16 appearances in the league this season but last played in a 1-0 loss to Tottenham at home on New Year’s day.

Ekong’s compatriot, Samuel Kalu is ruled out of the game as a result of an ankle injury.

Super Eagles stars, Emmauel Dennis and Oghenekaro Etebo are fit for the game and may play a part in the fixture.

The Hornets are on the brink of relegation and will need a miracle to escape especially as they face a tough run of fixtures.

Watford manager, Roy Hodgson said they've worked hard as a team and are in positive spirits ahead of the game.

“We’ve had to pick ourselves up, and the preparation for the game has been as good as I could expect. I’ve not seen any falling off in any way of desire, so that gives me some hope that we can go up there and give a performance like against Liverpool.

It’s a good game to play, I’m hoping the confidence hasn’t been totally shattered by the last-minute goal in the last game where the second-half performance was as good as we’ve given for a long period of time, so I’m hoping they’ll think more about how they played than not just the fact that we had to swallow the bitter pill of defeat.

“We’re monitoring one or two who haven’t been able to train with us as fully as we’d like during the week, but I’m expecting to have a pretty clean bill of health. There’s a risk I suppose that one or two others might not make it, but at the moment it’s looking pretty good in that respect.”