Watford head coach Javi Gracia has said he feels the side can have no complaints following Sunday’s defeat to Arsenal.
Heading to the Emirates Stadium to take on Arsene Wenger’s side, Arsenal addressed their three game losing streak and took a three nil victory on the day and whilst Gracia told the Official Site that he couldn’t argue with the result itself, he was left bemused as to how we didn’t get on the scoresheet in the game given our performance as we fashioned half a dozen good chances as well as a Troy Deeney penalty miss.
‘I’m disappointed because I can’t believe we didn’t score a goal. I always say if you create many chances and not score, you will have problems.’
With three of those chances falling to Richarlison, that was a positive in some senses for the gaffer as he knew the player continued to make the right moves so it should only be a matter of time before his lean spell comes to an end.
‘Richarlison played well, he created many chances but we need to score. I remember in the first-half, he had two or three clear chances. And in the second-half as well. We will try to do better next time.’
With Watford conceding after nine minutes, Gracia did know we’d made life tough for ourselves as given their recent run in the league the goal did settle them and give them a lift.
‘The match started with us conceding an early goal and then everything changed. It wasn’t our idea, our plan. We conceded an early goal and then everything changed. In the first-half both teams created many chances. In the second-half, at the beginning, we played better and had more control of the game, but after their second goal it was very difficult for us. We know Arsenal are very dangerous on the counter-attack and it was a very open game. I prefer another way. We defended well in the last game, but today it was difficult for us against good players. We tried to defend with two lines of four but to be ready to counter-attack. Sometimes Arsenal play with full-backs up, so we had some chances. We will try to do better next time.’
With Deeney’s penalty miss Gracia certainly wasn’t going to blame him.
‘Troy before the match was concentrating on playing well, to help the team and possibly to score. He had the chance to score a penalty. I am happy with him when he scores and when he doesn’t score.’
