All eyes are on Sunday now for Hayden Mullins, who knows the team’s fate rests on a make or break trip to the Emirates after defeat to Manchester City this evening.
The Hornets contained Pep Guardiola's side for 30 minutes but were undone by two quickfire goals in each half which put to bed any chance of stealing an unlikely victory on a counter-attack or from a set piece.
“We’ve got to get ourselves ready for the next game and our next game is Arsenal away on Sunday,” said Mullins.
“As a squad, we know what we need to do but it’s about us focusing on us, getting together as a squad and seeing what the next few days bring.
“We have to think about preparing ourselves right. It’s a tough game against a very good side in Arsenal. They’ve been performing very well at the moment.
“But we can only concentrate on ourselves, we can’t worry about other results going our way really.”
The Hornets set up to frustrate City this evening, not wanting to go out all guns blazing and get picked off on the counter-attack as Bournemouth did last gameweek, but were undone by a stunning Raheem Sterling strike and a penalty just before the break.
“We didn’t want to open it up too early because we know they’re very good on the counter-attack,” said Mullins.
“They’ve got some fantastic players, a fantastic manager and we knew that if we were a little bit naïve we would get hurt and be punished.
“We knew we had to be disciplined and we tried to set up a certain way and we were going to get to certain areas in the game where if we needed to make changes we could.
“The first goal gives us a little bit of a setback and the second one as well, I think we were a little bit unlucky with.”
Watford have faced City off the back of defeats twice this season now and after an FA Cup semi-final loss to Arsenal, Mullins knew it was going to be a tough task to contain a Guardiola team with their tails up.
“We knew they were going to offer a reaction from the game at the weekend, we knew they got beat against Arsenal and were going to come here with maybe a point to prove,” said the Interim Head Coach.
“We knew it wasn’t going to be a team who were going to come here, roll over and lay down because they’ve got nothing to play for.
“We did try to set up with a certain discipline but they’re a good side and sometimes you have to look at the opposition and hold your hands up.”
