Joshua King

A deep dive into what Joshua King's role is for Watford

There’s been a debate on Twitter recently regarding Joshua King and what he offers to this current Watford side. Given Twitter is the oracle of everything, I thought I’d write something about Joshua King and how key he’s been, and will be in our battle for survival; and this is coming from somebody who wasn’t keen on signing King last summer. Watford brought in the Norwegian striker on a free transfer after leaving Everton in the summer of 2021; looking back exactly 10 years ago, you wouldn’t be thinking he would be a number 9, or a modern number 9 for a Premier League club — especially given all the way through his career in English football up until signing for Bournemouth, and even then he never led the line; King was deployed as a winger at Hull and Blackburn — and not exactly productive either. It wasn’t until a surprising move to Bournemouth that King was partnered with Callum Wilson in a 4411, with the former operating just behind Wilson, in a role to supply his teammate, or sometimes on the left of a 442. But it wasn’t until a move to Watford at the age of 30 that King was tasked with being the first choice number 9 leading the line. But the question is, how good is he doing?

The short answer he’s doing just fine; not bad, not amazing. But there’s other factors into some of his play and other things out of his control. Firstly, and the most obvious one is the unbalanced squad, the chaos that’s been happening at the club since relegation in the 2019/2020 season, and going through another three managers in a season — all three having different methods and style of play. Looking at his time at Bournemouth, King was used as a number 10 or a left sided forward that can stretch play to leave Wilson in the middle to finish chances. Given King was sat in the hole of the two players, Wilson was able to take the defenders away, freeing up King to score goals from cutbacks via the fullbacks/wingers. Most of these goals came from the left side of the box, where King would often peel off. 16 of his 36 non penalty goals came from a cutback/cross into the box; he also scored a lot of goals from getting the second contact off a set piece, where he’d tail off to the back-post to tap home.

The common misconception when you look at King’s numbers in the Premier League — 53 goals in 156 90s, is you’d think he’s a goalscorer; when in reality, he’s a better creator than goalscorer, he just happens to have a decent knack of getting into good positions, with his finishing slightly letting him down. In six seasons, King accumulated just under 24 expected assists, 6 more than Troy Deeney. In many ways King is eerily similar to Deeney in 15/16, but a more mobile version. Gets into good positions, create for the striker(s) around him, and works hard in aerial battles and ground battles. They put more effort into doing actions for other players rather for themselves, which by the time they get a good chance — it looks rushed and doesn’t seem like they get a good connection on the ball.

How’s he been for Watford? as I mentioned earlier, he’s been fine. There is a big difference between Joshua King at Bournemouth and Joshua King at Watford. For instance, at Watford King is the central striker being used as the outlet to bring others into play, which the latter fits his skillset, but he’s attempting 5 more aerial duels per 90 than he did at Bournemouth, as well as seeing less of the ball (19 passes per 90 in comparison to 26 per 90 at Bournemouth). Given the style of forwards is much different at Watford — Sarr and Dennis are the main guys, the main scorers, which means King’s role in the team is to create for them, whereas at Bournemouth he was supplying one player, or being targeted by 4 other players. He’s doing a decent job of creating chances for his teammates as he’s leading the squad for key passes per 90. King almost always drops deeper with at least one forward player ahead of him, similar to what he had at Bournemouth, the criticism that gets levelled is he can go missing for parts of the game, but is that down to him or the style of play? It’s a mixture of both. When your number 9 is the main creator in the side, It’ll always be difficult to get him the ball, especially when Watford average 41% possession with a defence first approach.

These are the last three games for average positions for Watford players. For King’s role to truly work, it needs him to perform like he did in the second half vs Aston Villa. He was involved in everything good Watford did — He made the pass to Sissoko, won his duel to set Louza off for the goal, and got in front of his man to muster a good chance, which he probably should have done better with. The question is, does his ability to drop deep and play through balls and start attacks, outweigh the lack of goals? Only time will tell. Over the course of the season, King has scored in two games (non penalty goals ofc) with 3/4 goals coming in one game against Everton — taking out that game specifically, King averages 0.25 non penalty xG per 90 — which (you should never do this) projects him to score another 5 goals judging by his finishing ability; 0.25 npxG is the same as Richarlison, Smith-Rowe, Rashford and Raphinha. King’s finishing over the course of the season has been quite bad, but he is getting into good positions and taking higher quality shots than most, which can only be a good thing.

To conclude; King has so far been a good signing for Watford, his performance levels have genuinely been solid — at times he can go missing, but that’s the nature of this squad, their ability and the situation they find themselves in. King probably has one of, if not the hardest job as a striker in the league, given the workload he has to get through. Not only does he lead the team for key passes, he also leads the team for shot creation actions from open play, aerial duels won, whilst third for pressures and progressive carries. Watford have a big game against Crystal Palace, and we’ll need King to be at his best to get the three points. If he’s not at his best, there’s a certain Brazilian on the bench ready to take his place in Joao Pedro. Click link for video of Josh King creation this season