It’s muck and nettles and you have to fight for every ounce of luck
It was Burnley who won the points yesterday but for home boss Javi Gracia it was a disappointing first home defeat in charge since he replaced Marco Silva in the hot seat at Vicarage Road.
He admitted that his side have much to learn in the art of defending, particularly from set pieces, but felt they should have been the team picking up the points.
“I think we dominated the game,” he said. “We had more possession, more shots on target, we had 10 corner kicks but it wasn’t enough. We should have killed the game when we could do it but in three minutes we have conceded two goals from free kicks, again like the last game, and we have to improve these defensive actions because we are losing many, many points.”
Watford had drawn 2-2 at home a week earlier against Bournemouth with the away team scoring a late equaliser through Jermain Defoe following a free kick and Gracia added: “If you see the game today you can see we need to improve these defensive actions. I hope in the next game we’ll be better.
“They didn’t surprise us today because we know their style of play with long balls, second balls and they feel comfortable without possession. Before we conceded the goals in three minutes we were playing well. We had created the chances, scored and we felt comfortable, but after that it was tough.”
He concluded, regarding their defending set pieces: “I don’t think it’s something physical. Okay, you have to defend against players taller than you many times and it’s not easy, but I’m sure we can do it better and I’m sure we’ll do better next time.”
Yesterday provided Sean Dyche with his first win as a manager at Vicarage Road since goals from Chris Iwelumo and Troy Deeney gave his Watford side a 2-1 win against Middlesbrough on the final day of the 2011/12 season, his last game in charge of Watford.
“Watford are a good side and to come here and get a big three points, after a few more injuries, is fantastic. The work ethic and mentality continues to grow and after going one goal down, deservedly so, we responded again.”
He joked: “We’ve done that many times and it was a good goal from Vokesy, that we designed. I told him if he didn’t score within 30 seconds of coming on, he wasn’t playing next week, and that rocked them.
“We got a quick second and then I felt we saw the game out very well, so it was more mentality that saw us through today.”
He admitted: “We played much better against West Ham and West Brom, but our winning desire got us through today. We’ve had some fantastic wins this season, and others like today where it’s muck and nettles and you have to fight for every ounce of luck, and over the season you need that.
“We’ve never made any grand statements. We are what we are and that is a team that will do everything to try and win and that was on show today.”
There was contrasting news regarding the two players who have dropped out of the team through injury recently, Ben Mee and Jόhann Berg Guðmundsson. He explained: “We’re not sure how long Ben will be. It’s a knock on his shin that has flared and it just needs a period of time to settle down.
” Jόhann has a chance for next week if he has a good week, so we’ll wait and see. We’ve a couple of injury problems at the minute, but if we keep performing like that, then it shows the good squad mentality.”
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