REUTERS – Tottenham Hotspur winger Andros Townsend is exactly the type of player Watford need, manager Quique Sanchez Flores said ahead of Wednesday’s Premier League clash against Southampton.

Watford, ninth in the table, had a 10 million-pound ($14.4 million) bid for the 24-year-old England international turned down this month, British media reported.

“He has the characteristics that we are looking for,” the Spaniard told reporters.

“We have players in the side who can play intelligent football but we need skill, we need velocity. We need to make a balance with these players and he has the characteristics.”

Flores also announced his interest in former Arsenal and Manchester City striker Emmanuel Adebayor, who is a free agent, although he stressed that Troy Deeney and Odion Ighalo were his preferred attacking combination.

“I can understand why a lot of clubs in England want to sign Adebayor. It’s not easy to come here to cover Deeney and Ighalo. We need to explain to the players on what condition they’re coming to this team,” Flores said.

“We play with two strikers but it’s difficult to take them out of the team, including in the match.”

($1 = 0.6941 pounds)

(Reporting by Shravanth Vijayakumar in Bengaluru, editing by Ed Osmond)