Aware of the tough task ahead of Watford this weekend, Roy Hodgson acknowledged his side will have to be at their best defensively in their fight for points against Manchester City (April 23, 3pm KO).
Hodgson, who has picked up a victory and a draw in his last three visits to the Etihad Stadium, doesn’t dwell on past successes and is fully focused on preparing his squad for the next game.
Keen not to underestimate Pep Guardiola’s charges, the 74-year-old is prepared for the Hornets to retain a rigid structure, and attempt to nullify the star-studded City attack.
“Everyone knows what the situation is,” said Hodgson.
“What we’re going to do is try and make ourselves unpopular. If we want to make ourselves popular with Pep, the Man City crowd and everyone else, all we do is go hell for leather and try to match them at their game, which is a recipe for disaster. The only chance is to go there and give their play the respect it deserves and make life as difficult for them as we possibly can.
“Seal the spaces that they need to get into goalscoring positions, make it hard for their players in the final third to produce the passes and crosses they need to, and then when we do get the ball, have enough, especially on the counter attack to give them problems.
“We’re enormously wary of the fixture, we know how easy it is to get heavily beaten there because of their enormous attacking talent and wealth of talent Pep has at his disposal.”
Despite the scale of the challenge in front of the players, Hodgson has been delighted with their hard work in training this week, and senses a belief in the team.
He confirmed that there are potentially minor injuries ruling out a couple of squad members, but the ex-England boss has nearly a full complement of players up for selection.
“The players have done exceptionally well this week, after the bitter disappointment which cost us what should have been a well-earned point [against Brentford],” Hodgson continued.
“We’ve had to pick ourselves up, and the preparation for the game has been as good as I could expect. I’ve not seen any falling off in any way of desire, so that gives me some hope that we can go up there and give a performance like against Liverpool.
“It’s a good game to play, I’m hoping the confidence hasn’t been totally shattered by the last-minute goal in the last game where the second-half performance was as good as we’ve given for a long period of time, so I’m hoping they’ll think more about how they played than not just the fact that we had to swallow the bitter pill of defeat.
“We’re monitoring one or two who haven’t been able to train with us as fully as we’d like during the week, but I’m expecting to have a pretty clean bill of health. There’s a risk I suppose that one or two others might not make it, but at the moment it’s looking pretty good in that respect.”
Shaq Forde made an appearance in a Premier League squad for the first time in the defeat to Brentford, marking another milestone in the 17-year-old’s exciting development. Hodgson was full of praise for the youngster’s attitude and the hard work in the academy.
“It was a nice moment to reward Shaq,” said Hodgson. “He’s done well in the training sessions and he is a bright young talent, and it’s nice to have bright young talents around.
“It’s nice to show everyone working in the academy section hoping to get their chance that people that run the team are not averse to giving young players a try if you can show them in training sessions that you deserve it.”
