Did Watford do enough to get something out of that?
Yea, I mean obviously they’re good, aren’t they? It was unfortunate, you know we had the, what would have been a wonderful start, the early strike for Dennis chalked off for offside. I don’t know how far it was offside, but it got chalked off. I thought we did well after their 1-0 goal to get back in it to 1-1. But of course, the second goal was a blow to us because it came at a time when we weren’t actually doing that badly. But I must say, I give credit to the players for their second-half performance. They came out at 2-1, they did their level best to get back to 2-2. It led to a 3-1 goal, but still, we didn’t give up. Still, we kept going. Still we kept trying. We made an exciting last five or so minutes of it by scoring that excellent second goal from Moussa Sissoko.
Were you surprised the fans booed when Imran Louza went off?
I don’t know. Fans have got their favourites. I like Louza as well. I think he’s a very good player. But we won’t know Kayembe that well and certainly, people at the club think he’s an excellent player. Plays in the same position as Louza. Three goals to one, I thought Imran was looking a little bit tired. We got two games coming up, I thought it was the right moment to give him a rest and let’s see what Kayembe can do for 30 minutes. The thing is, the fans will pick players that are their favourites, and they have payers unfortunately at this club that are not their favourites, and my problem is the ones that are not their favourites are the ones that are doing the best job for us.
Were you disappointed to get a pint after a good display?
Listen, it’s Watford at the bottom of the table against Arsenal. They haven’t lost a game since God knows when. You know, basically speaking, they’ve got about two games in hand and they are one point behind the top four in the country. We always knew we would have to put out a lot of stops to get something from the game. I don’t think I can ask any more from the players on what they gave Watford football club and the fans today I really don’t. I think in other circumstances, we could have got something from the game quite simply, because the two goals we conceded, unfortunately – the second and third goal – they weren’t good goals to concede that’s for sure. They came from quite clear technical mistakes. But technical mistakes are part of the game. You know, we understand that you don’t criticise your players for making a technical mistake. But now under other circumstances, we might not have made those mistakes and we might not have conceded those goals. I’ve just been speaking to Mikel and they thought that we made life very difficult for them today. And I’m pleased to see that somebody else in football has the same impression about the game as I had. I thought we made life very difficult for them. But we did come up against probably a bigger number than we have at the moment. And I can’t ask any more I think of the players, as a manager, than what they gave me and the club today.
What did you think of Cucho Hernandez’s goal?
It was a great goal. It was a very good move. That’s the thing. It wasn’t just a good goal. It was a very good move. We had a few of those moves. I thought some of our attacking moves and the intentions today were actually quite good. I mean Kiko [Femenia] got in the second half and play the ball across the six-yard box which I was pretty sure we were gonna score for. I thought that Dennis’ shot in the first half, when we got the ball to his feet in the penalty area after another good move, and he shimmied and got a good left foot shot in which Ramsdale made a good save. So I thought that the goal chances we created were often the result of some pretty good attacking movement and football but we didn’t score from ours and unfortunately the two chances they took, the second and third goal, they fell very kindly to the people on the edge of the box after unfortunately we had presented them with the chance.
How do you assess your chances of staying up with 11 games go?
What do you want me to say? I’ve got to say quite frankly, it always stupifies me. That people know football, you follow football, you know what Arsenal are, you know how good they are. It stupifies me to think that people believe quite frankly, that you’re going to start your revival by, by comfortably beating the Arsenal. I know in football, that’s not going to happen. And you’ve got to work very hard to keep in the game as we did. But we’ve got games against teams much closer in the table than us, than Manchester United and Arsenal, I would like to think that if we can be producing some of the football we produced today, especially going forward, and we can defend even a little bit better – and we have defended better in some of the previous games – if we can marry those two things together, then who knows, we give ourselves a good chance.
Do you think if you’re gonna stay up, you’re going to need to attack more than defend?
I don’t understand the question. What does that mean? How does that mean that? What do I do as a coach to get that? You are asking me a question, which I think is unanswerable. You know, the players upfront, we’ve got at the same time, up to now. No one’s stopping them from doing what they can do. No one’s stopping them. But we still got to make it so we don’t concede goals. We conceded too many unfortunately. We conceded three today, it’s cost us the game. I’d be much happier if we had conceded none. But you know, you’re coming from an angle, unfortunately, as a football coach, I don’t understand. It’s it’s a dream-like scenario where you either defend or you attack. Whereas in my world, it’s always been both by the fan. You’ve got to defend well and not let goals in. You’ve got to attack well and score.
Is it a blessing that you don’t play at home for a while now, is it becoming a psychological issue?
Maybe, I don’t know. I don’t think that way, not. I’d like to think that the fans are going to help us. But you might tell me, ‘That’s naive. The fans won’t help you because you’re not winning enough’. But I’ll keep believing they will. I’ll keep believing they’ll have the same sort of faith that Ray and I have got. That we can help this team and make them better. And with any luck, they’ll get out of the situation. And that’s where we are. But of course we control the fans, and what they think or what they want, or how much support they want to give. But I’d like to think they will want to continue supporting us, and continue helping us in our fight to stay in the league. Because one thing that I will be very surprised at, is an accusation that could be levelled against us today was: you didn’t try hard enough or you didn’t want to do well enough, you surrendered. Because I didn’t see that. But then of course you see things differently.
Was the performance of Joao Pedro and Cucho encouraging without Ismaila Sarr and Josh King?
I don’t think we did miss them [Sarr and King], because I don’t know that those two could have done any better. That’s the bottom line. We didn’t lose the game because there was no Sarr or no King, because both Cucho and Joao Pedro did a very good job. We lost the game quite simply because they punished us for one or two mistakes we made in and around our penalty area in particularly the cross-field ball that went out of play and then a quick throw-in that we didn’t adjust to. Whereas were unable unfortunately to get similar chances against them. However, we did create chances against them. There’s no doubt that. And Joao Pedro and Cucho were very much a part of that.
Did you have any problems with Mikel Arteta’s quick throw? Did you mention it to him?
No. That’s as good work from their side. I mean, I must say I try very hard not to criticise teams for trying to speed up the game when they’re needing a goal and if that means the coach runs along and gets the ball back to his player quicker, I just congratulate them. And in the same way, I try not to criticise teams too hard in the last five minutes of the game, and to some extent, we are laying a little bit of a siege to their goal that they try to take the sting out of the game and try and take some time out of the game. Because I know damn well, that’s what we’re going to be doing in a similar situation. So I try hard to be a football person of all time and look to see things through other spectacles.
Did Tom Cleverely and Louza admit to their mistakes in the dressing room?
The first thing to say certainly is that Cleverely had another very, very good game and did some very, very good things for us fortunately especially defensively. And Imram, I didn’t take him off because he made a mistake. Far from it, I regard Imran as one of the three important midfield players. I’ve been very happy with him so far. But I don’t know Kayemebe very well. And the people who brought him to the club have a very high regard for him. I thought Imran looked a little bit tired today. It was hard work for him in there having to sort of deal with virtually two players. I thought it was an ideal opportunity to give Kayembe a game, but it certainly has nothing to do with you know a lose pass from Imran. Because basically we want him to get Imran the ball as much as he possibly can. If I’m going to find ways to try and punish him every time he makes a mistake, then he’s going to stop wanting the ball and getting on the ball. He’s an important player for us. I’ve been very happy with the midfield three, and they’ve done a wonderful job for us. And he’s very much a part of that three, very much a part of the pats on the back I’m given that three. But today, I thought it might be the opportunity to see Kayemebe, with fresh legs could bring something new to help us. As it turned out, we didn’t see a big difference. So it’s one of those things. But you know fans have got favourites. And unfortunately, we have taken over a team where the fans have decided long ago who their favourites are and who their favourites aren’t. Unfortunately, I’ve got keep trying to pick the team to win games and not be the team that the fans would like to see, because I don’t trust their judgement at all times.
It’s the first time Watford would have scored two since November, is that a positive sign that things are moving in the right direction?
Well it will only be a positive sign we are moving the right direction when we’re dominating games and scoring two goals from 15 clear goal chances. That wasn’t the case today. But quite frankly, we aren’t in a position at the moment to create 15 clear goal chances against Arsenal totally dominate the game against them. Because quite frankly, they were a better team than we are. We had to do what we thought we could do. And I’ve thought personally, the team did very well. But it’s nice to know that the goals are there. And it’s nice to know that some of the movements that we do work on in training, like all teams– I’m not saying that we were the only team that works on its attacking play, every team does – but it was nice to see one or two of the things that players had worked on provided some dividends. Hopefully that will give us some confidence to keep doing it.
