Free agent Danny Rose signs two-year deal with Watford

Watford have announced the signing of defender Danny Rose on a two-year deal following his departure from Tottenham.

Left-back Rose, 30, was released at the end of his Spurs contract, having spent last season training with the club’s under-23s, and will join the newly promoted Hornets as a free agent on July 1.

Former England international Rose came through the Leeds youth set-up before joining Tottenham and had a short loan spell with Watford in 2009, appearing seven times.

Rose moved to Spurs in 2007 and went on to make 241 appearances, being a key part of Mauricio Pochettino’s team that challenged for honours over a number of seasons.

However, the experienced defender, who won 29 England caps, found himself out of favour under Jose Mourinho and spent the second half of the 2019-20 season on loan at Newcastle.

After vowing to allow his sizeable contract at Spurs to run down, Rose found himself banished to the under-23s set-up and was not even registered in the club’s Premier League squad last season.

Much of his plight under Mourinho was caught on camera in Amazon Prime Video’s All or Nothing documentary.

The defender was shown having a confrontation with the Portuguese coach about why he was not being selected, threatening to go and see chairman Daniel Levy about his plight over a perceived preferential treatment to other players.

Reflecting on his departure in June, Rose said on the official Tottenham website: “I wish we could have won something together but the club are not far away from that and obviously I wish everybody at the club the best of luck going forward.

“On the whole, the club and the chairman have been brilliant towards me. For 14 years I’ve pretty much driven the same route into training every day.

“It’s all I’ve known really, it’s going to be strange if and when I join a new team because I’m going to be taking a different route to training, but I’m grateful to the club for bringing me in in 2007 as a 17-year-old and I feel very privileged to have experienced some of Tottenham’s great days.

“I was given an opportunity this season to pass some of that knowledge on, I’d like to think that I’ve done that and I leave the football club a better person, a better professional, a better human than I was when I arrived 14 years ago.”