Valérien Ismaël spoke to the media after a 2-1 victory over Chesterfield sent the Hornets into the fourth round of the Emirates FA Cup.
Joe Quigley gave the National League side a 1-0 half-time lead before Mileta Rajović equalised with a 76th-minute header, then Tom Dele-Bashiru won the game for Watford with a 95th-minute strike.
Covering a range of topics, including the Graham Taylor Matchday tributes and booking a place in Monday night's draw, read what the Head Coach had to say below…
On making life difficult for themselves:
In the first half we didn’t control anything. That’s what I said to the players at half-time. In the second half we needed to come back in our mentality and to raise our standards.
I wanted answers; I was standing on the sidelines and I didn’t understand what had happened. You could clearly see it was just a mentality thing, it was nothing to do with the quality, technically or tactically.
We made it in the second half. We expected to do it in the first half and have a more comfortable afternoon, but the players chose the other way to make it more complicated. We have to make sure we do the right thing from minute one.
On Graham Taylor tributes and staying in the Emirates FA Cup:
It was the Graham Taylor Matchday, so it was important for us to start 2024 in front of our fans well, and with a win. We take the cup seriously. The memories of Graham made it important to play with full strength.
The main thing is we made it. Credit to Chesterfield, I think they played a very good away game. We will now push the Sheffield Wednesday game to the February schedule and we will have another cup game.
It means Edo Kayembe could only miss two league games [while at AFCON]. We also have another game to reintegrate our injured players, like Jamal Lewis and Ken Sema.
On Tom Dele-Bashiru's late winner:
The last-minute goal creates the belief in the players that we are able to come back at any time. He finished it well and had a great game today.
He has helped us with the gap at the right-back position. He got his reward with an excellent game and the winner.
On Jorge Hurtado's debut:
We have a lot of work to do. I think you see clearly the potential, it’s a case now of finding the rhythm to adapt to the intensity. We see clearly the quality but we also see the work.
On Mileta Rajović:
We know that he’s a goalscorer. He has two things we expect of a number nine, one is scoring goals and the second is holding the ball.
I think we need a lot of work with him but he’s already showed his quality in the box in English football. But we’re looking forward to working with him and to improve.
