{"id":583069,"date":"2021-02-11T13:10:28","date_gmt":"2021-02-11T18:10:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=583069"},"modified":"2021-02-11T13:10:28","modified_gmt":"2021-02-11T18:10:28","slug":"watford-newcastle-achraf-lazaar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/02\/11\/watford-newcastle-achraf-lazaar\/","title":{"rendered":"Watford Complete Signing of Former Newcastle United Defender Achraf Lazaar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/01\/19\/confidence-ebbing-away-for-steve-bruce-and-newcastle-united-players\/\" target=\"_self\">Newcastle United<\/a> defender Achraf Lazaar has completed a move to <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/02\/06\/xisco-munoz-already-thin-ice-watfords-form-drops\/\" target=\"_self\">Watford<\/a> as a free agent.<\/p>\n<p>The 29-year-old full-back was released by the Magpies in January after four-and-a-half years at the club, but he only managed to make ten appearances in that time.<\/p>\n<h2>Achraf Lazaar Joins Watford<\/h2>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">\u270d\ufe0f We are pleased to confirm the signing of Moroccan international left-back <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LazaarAchraf?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@LazaarAchraf<\/a> on a contract until the end of the season, with the club holding an option of a further year.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Watford Football Club \ud83d\udc99 (@WatfordFC) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WatfordFC\/status\/1359918118928347140?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">February 11, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Defensive Cover Until the End of the Season<\/h3>\n<p>Lazaar has <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/football-transfer-news\/\" target=\"_self\">joined<\/a> the Hornets on a deal understood to be until the end of the season, reports the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.watfordobserver.co.uk\/sport\/19075371.watford-close-signing-former-newcastle-united-defender-achraf-lazaar\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Watford Observer&#8217;s Ryan Gray<\/a>. It is also thought that there will be an option to extend the deal by a further year.<\/p>\n<p>The Moroccan defender will come in to help out a defence that has recently lost Adam Masina, Ken Sema and Kiko Femenia to injuries.<\/p>\n<p>Previous head coach Vladimir Ivic had wanted to bring in a left-back as cover for Masina since the beginning of the season, but the club appeared happy to wait and let the likes of Jeremy Ngakia, a right-back, fill in until Masina returned.<\/p>\n<p>In November, Ivic expressed his frustration at the lack of development on that front, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hertfordshiremercury.co.uk\/sport\/football\/football-news\/watford-manager-ivic-frustrated-lack-4665523\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">telling reporters<\/a>: &#8220;I am asking [for a left-back].<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;At the moment we have just the one player with a left foot. Ken Sema has played all the games but in his position, we would like somebody else who can give us an option.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s something I know we need but I need to work with the team and the squad we have to try and take 100 per cent from them.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And try to find the player who can give me in this position something extra, to take risks sometimes and to continue to work.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h3>Lazaar&#8217;s Career<\/h3>\n<p>Though born in Casablanca in Morocco, Lazaar came through the youth system at Varese after moving to Italy with his parents.<\/p>\n<p>His senior debut came for Varese in 2012 and he went on to make 42 appearances for the club before completing a move to Palermo.<\/p>\n<p>Here, he was a regular fixture in the 2014\/15 and 2015\/16 squads but made just one appearance in the next campaign before completing a move to Newcastle.<\/p>\n<p>The transfer, though, didn&#8217;t work out. Although part of the Magpies&#8217; Championship-winning team in 2016\/17, Lazaar was back in Italy with Benevento by the next season, joining them on loan.<\/p>\n<p>He also spent part of 2019 back in the Championship with Sheffield Wednesday, while his last loan before leaving Newcastle for good last month was with Italian Serie B side Cosenza.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"ZsYzd_HMQ8VSMaL5zIuGuA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1281077571\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'ZsYzd_HMQ8VSMaL5zIuGuA',sig:'EAXJP7BFLhYuCvOnZgPw98zH9V-3_IntLDIE7Ti4sJs=',w:'594px',h:'395px',items:'1281077571',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Newcastle United defender Achraf Lazaar has completed a move to Watford as a free agent. The 29-year-old full-back was released by the Magpies in January after four-and-a-half years at the club, but he only managed to make ten appearances in that time. Achraf Lazaar Joins Watford \u270d\ufe0f We are pleased to confirm the signing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1144,"featured_media":583070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,33,30,28],"tags":[8189,168,1297,116,296,136],"class_list":["post-583069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-league-football","category-championship","category-news","category-transfers","tag-achraf-lazaar","tag-efl","tag-football-transfer-news","tag-newcastle-united","tag-watford","tag-world-football"],"modified_by":"Tom Cunningham, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1144"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}