Ben Hamer spoke to watfordfc.com after the goalless draw at Sheffield Wednesday extended the Hornets' unbeaten run away from home to seven games.
The 36-year-old made a vital save in stoppage time to prevent Anthony Musaba giving the home side the lead as Watford earned their first clean sheet in 15 matches.
Read what the goalkeeper had to say below...
To be honest, a bit disappointed. It was always going to be a tough night because when we first got here we knew the pitch was going to be bad, but we couldn’t use that as an excuse. We had to fight a lot for the points today, but I thought the first half especially we lacked winning duels which is important on nights like this when you’re playing on a bad pitch. You’ve got to win those battles and we didn’t quite do that in the first half, in the second half we had a couple of breaks but we didn’t trouble the keeper enough. In the end we have got to be happy with the point because it was a tough night, really hard to play football.
There have been games where we have won but not kept clean sheets, so ultimately as long as we win the game I am happy and the team’s happy but obviously if we get the clean sheet it’s a bonus. We definitely had to work for it tonight, we kept a few out at the end there, we’ll take the 0-0 and move onto Saturday and see if we can express ourselves a little bit better on our pitch which is always, always top drawer.
We have got to go into the Cardiff game on Saturday full of positivity, and take this point and make it four with the three points on Saturday hopefully.
[Save at the end] They get the throw-in, broke into the middle of the pitch and he unleashes one from 20 yards, to be fair I saw it late because it came through a lot of bodies so luckily I did my feet well and got across and kept it out, but that’s my job, I’ve got to do that and luckily tonight I did.
The pitch does have an impact, especially when we want to play out from the back, trying to wrap a ball into my centre half, he needs two or three touches to get it under control because it is hobbling all over the shop. It was the same for both teams, they dealt with it better because obviously they have got the advantage of playing on it every week so they can get a feel for it whereas we’ve come in here in the cold and we don’t really know how the pitch plays. I think tonight at times you could see that where the pitch wasn’t as fluid as it normally is, and I think it was one of them tonight where we had to fight to hang in there, probably be happy with a point in the end, listen we will take it.
The [FA Cup] replay is not ideal but we’ll deal with it, it is another challenge, and the cup is obviously amazing for the lads, especially for the lads who aren’t getting much game time to go out and say to the gaffer what they can do. We have just got to take it in our stride now and luckily we got through tonight with no injuries and we’re going to need all the bodies for the next few weeks because with six games coming up it is going to be an important period like Christmas, so hopefully we can all stay strong and fit, and get the results we need to stay in contention for the play-offs.
