Reaction: Watford v Nottingham Forest

Watford head coach Gianfranco Zola said his side could ‘defend better` after drawing 1-1 against Nottingham Forest earlier this afternoon.

Andy Reid put the Tricky Trees ahead after just six minutes with a stinging strike off the outside of his boot following a poor decision from Marco Cassetti.

Lewis McGugan equalised for Watford in his first match against his former employers, whipping a delicious free-kick past former teammate Karl Darlow.

Speaking to BBC Sport afterwards, Zola said that the game was too open.

‘It’s one of those games I’m sure the crowd enjoyed, but certainly not the managers,” said Zola. ‘I think it was too open. It gives me a lot of points to coach and a lot of indications on how we can improve the team.

Watford were caught out at the back on several occasions and were indebted to captain Manuel Almunia, who pulled off several good stops in the second period.

‘We know we have to defend better than we are at the moment. I also know if we want to be an offensive team we can’t be perfect at defending as well,” admitted Zola.

The Italian also admitted the goalscorer McGugan was nearly not on the pitch before his fine leveller: ‘I was about to substitute off McGugan before the goal. He looked tired. I left him on the pitch and he almost scored a second.’

Nottingham Forest assistant manager David Kelly – speaking instead of Billy Davies – said that the visitors should have won what was an end-to-end tussle in WD18.

‘What’s that old saying about a good advertisement for the Championship? It was a good game,” stated Kelly.

‘But it’s a good point against one if the teams that are going to be up there challenging. We had enough chances to finish the game off well before there scored.’

The Forest number two did concede that they were disappointed at conceding a set-piece goal for the equaliser.

‘I’m really pleased with how we played and how we attacked. I’m very disappointed with the goal – we worked all week on set plays and people being in certain positions in the wall.”

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Watford host Bournemouth in the Capital One Cup on Tuesday.