Preview: Ismaël Speaks Ahead Of Hull City Clash

Valérien Ismaël spoke to the media ahead of Watford’s trip up to Hull City in the Sky Bet Championship (Saturday December 2, 3pm KO), with the Hornets looking to build on Tuesday night’s thrilling 3-2 win over Norwich City.

Covering a range of topics, including his thoughts on the Tigers and team news for the game, read what the Head Coach had to say below…

On the threat posed by Hull:

We will have to stay stable and make sure that we develop confidence in the game. Especially with away games, it is important to make sure you’ve got a clear picture of what’s going on on the pitch during the first 15 minutes.

After that we have to make sure to be brave with the ball and make the opponent feel that anything can happen at any time - we have the quality to do that. We are well organised and defensively we are strong, but we need something else. We are an attacking team, but we need to show it.

On team news:

The players came through Tuesday night without any issues. Besides Jeremy Ngakia, the only player we are still missing is Giorgi [Chakvetadze] with a groin problem. We don’t want to take any risks, but for sure he will be back next week. Otherwise, all the players will be available for tomorrow, including Daniel [Bachmann].

On the mood in the camp after the Norwich win:

You can imagine that everyone is very delighted. Firstly because of the result, secondly for the performance, and thirdly for the mentality we put into the game. The players reacted very strongly and calmly, and showed a big desire to do the right thing.

We know we can play well, so now the question is can we keep playing well? Step by step we are building as a team, so we want to keep that momentum with us and bring some of it on to the pitch tomorrow. We know we have a strong mentality and we want to bring it into every game.

On preventing goals being conceded from set-pieces:

We work on it every week - we have the video analysis, and we know what we have to do and the reason why we conceded. We are not in position, and we get distracted in another area when the ball comes in.

We just need to be disciplined in our own zone. I said to the guys if you do that, then you will be much better. I am not concerned as we have seen the solution straight away and we know what we have to do.

On Matheus Martins:

We have great quality in our squad, which is really good because the team performance improves as a result of the individuals wanting to perform. if Ken [Sema] puts in a good performance at a high level then Matheus has to be patient, but when he comes in, he has to put in a good performance as well. If we can compete at that level all the time then it is much better. When players from the bench come on, we know they can have an impact on the game all the time.