Sanchez Flores pleased with Watford but Farke rues defensive errors

Posted Saturday, November 09, 2019 by PA

Watford manager Quique Sanchez Flores was pleased with his side’s performance as they claimed their first win of the season and moved off the bottom of the table with a 2-0 win over Norwich.

The Hornets got off to a dream start as Gerard Deulofeu slotted the ball past Canaries goalkeeper Tim Krul inside the opening two minutes.

The game then opened up, with chances at both ends before first-half substitute Andre Gray doubled his side’s lead in the second half with a clever back-heeled effort.

Watford looked in control before Christian Kabasele was sent off for a second yellow-card offence to leave his side a man down for the last 25 minutes, but Flores’ men were able to hold on.

The Watford boss said: “We are really happy for the result, we are really happy with the match, how fast we scored, with everything.

“Yes we could have been a bit more because the last 25 minutes was one player less and it is difficult to keep up the team and it was a little bit different in the last moments.”

When asked about the importance of the game, the Spaniard said: “We know it was a significant match and it looks like a final and we can do what we did.

“Try to give our energy and our good spirit and we try to put the soul in the pitch, knowing they have a team also with fortunes like us and they need to win also like us and they are playing at home.

“It was our time to show something else and to get some step up it’s important.”

The Canaries now have just one point from their last seven matches – a run stretching back to their shock win over Manchester City on September 14 – and manager Daniel Farke admitted he was frustrated with his side’s defensive mistakes.

Farke said: “It’s pretty annoying, trying and frustrating evening without any doubt because it was not necessary to lose this game.

“I think we won nearly all the statistics, we dominated the possession and had many shots and we created many situations, there were spells when it looked a little bit like a powerplay on one goal.

“If you produce such naïve mistakes and more like nursery mistakes in front of the goal it is difficult on this level to win football games, so my feeling is if you are there with these mistakes, especially before the first goal it is difficult to win.

“If you’re producing such mistakes in the best league in the world it’s difficult then to gain some points and I think these were pretty much game-defining moments.”