Craig Cathcart: Ferdinand and Vidic helped me a lot

Quique Sanchez Flores has played alongside Spanish great Fernando Hierro and coached artful South American defenders Robero Ayala and Diego Godin so when he said Craig Cathcart has been “fantastic” during his embryonic reign as head coach of Watford it carries plenty of weight.

Amid the arrival of ten new signings and the fanfare around the arrival of a coach of some pedigree, Cathcart’s commanding and virtually faultless (he made one slip up against Sevilla) performances in pre-season have gone somewhat under the radar. That’s probably just the way the unassuming Northern Irishman likes it but he has made it virtually impossible for Sanchez Flores to pick two players with Serie A experience (Gabriele Angella and Miguel Britos, when he’s free of suspension) ahead of him.

“I’m really happy here,” Catchart said. “My family are happy and I just want to help Watford be successful. I signed a new deal which I was delighted about. It couldn’t have got much better for me coming here.”

Perhaps it was just an administrative oversight but you wonder what Cathcart did wrong to only get four more years instead of the five dished out to Troy Deeney, Matej Vydra and Angella this summer. That’s beside the point. Cathcart is just happy to have another shot at Premier League football. He has unfinished business after being relegated with Blackpool by just a point.

“I was pretty young [when relegated with Blackpool in 2011] so I was confident I’d get back to this level at some stage,” he said. “I definitely enjoyed my time in the Premier League. I got plenty of experience and games in the Championship and I’m ready to test myself again at this level. Experience as a defender is vital. You start to read the game better and get into positions you wouldn’t do when you were younger. I’ve definitely learned from the Premier League experience.”

Cathcart was powerless on the day Blackpool were relegated: he was an unused substitute at Old Trafford as United came from 2-1 down to win 4-2 and dash Tangerine dreams of an escape act. It was, however, another chance to study two of United’s greatest ever defenders, Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic.

“The pair of them were really good with us young players at United,” said Cathcart who was a pro under Sir Alex Ferguson for four years but never made a first-team appearance. “If you neeeded any help they would always be there. I’d go and watch them every week and try and learn as much as I could, so I hope I learned a little bit off them.”

There will also be a United reunion between Cathcart and Tom Cleverley on Saturday afternoon at Goodison Park.

“I played with Tom in the youth teams [at United] and I played my first loan spell at Watford with him,” Cathcart said. “I’m looking forward to seeing him. We haven’t spoken for a while. In football it’s difficult as as you lose touch with people. It will be be good to see a familiar face again.”

One face Cathcart, 26, would be forgiven for not looking forward to seeing is that of Romelu Lukaku, the hulking Belgium striker who will provide the focal point of Roberto Martinez’s attack. Despite spending time on loan in Belgium, Cathcart has never come up against Lukaku. Does he plan to get tight to the former Chelsea man and risk being rolled or does he drop off and give him the opportunity for Lukaku to run at him?

“That’s the conundrum of playing against top quality players,” he said. “You have to take advice off the coaching staff. We’ve been working hard at defending as a whole team and our shape has looked good. We’ve got different types of defensive styles: if we press high or if we drop off, everyone knows what they are doing and where they need to be. The coach has been great and gets his points across well. The lads are buying into his philosophy and we will be hard to beat.”

Cathcart is our team to face Everton. But click below to see who we think will join him.

It was a tough choice to select our #watfordfc formation and midfield for #efc on Saturday. http://t.co/8rJD6WM1xX pic.twitter.com/C3eqv6FxNq — WD Sport (@WDSport_) August 4, 2015

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