Valérien Ismaël spoke to the media following Watford’s 3-3 draw at Coventry City, with a brace from Mileta Rajović and a Matheus Martins strike ensuring the spoils were shared at the CBS Arena.
Covering a range of topics, including taking a point away from home, Rajović’s goals and the current state of play heading into the international break, read what the Head Coach had to say below…
On taking a point on the road:
I think it was a great game. There was a great attitude from the players and we played some good football - it’s not an easy place to get points, it’s a tough away game. Rajović scored two goals and you could see how important a number nine is for our game. There was a great attitude from the players to come back into the match after the second goal we conceded. I saw lots of positives today.
Overall, we are still moving in the right direction and there is a good feeling. Unfortunately, we can’t show it on the table at the minute, but now we will have a break to recharge the battery, to analyse everything and we will go again. We have two home games with a clear desire to get three points. It feels like we lost two points rather than saying it was a point.
On his squad’s reaction after conceding:
I want to say congratulations to the guys because I was always pleased with the reaction. I can imagine many teams, when you concede a goal like [the second goal], drop mentally and you can lose the game completely, but we came back straight away. We scored and it was a fight after. For the supporters, it was a nice game to watch, but we need to reduce the mistakes.
On Mileta Rajović’s performance:
He is a number nine and he has to be in the box both times to score goals. This is why you pay the strikers – to score goals and be in the right position. Not only that, but I think now in our game he gives us more flexibility.
At the end, we changed our shape and to be sure that we could create another chance and you saw that he had another chance to score with the header. He gives us more flexibility in our game and more strengths.
On Wesley Hoedt’s own-goal:
I think he has reacted positively. He knows exactly and he is a very experienced player – he is really important for us. You accept this because I was also a player and I made mistakes. I have scored own-goals as well and it’s part of the job, unfortunately.
We cannot blame him, we will speak with him and make sure his decision-making is clear. If after that we see Wesley always making the right decisions, then today can be remembered as the time when we flipped the switch.
On his thoughts heading into the international break:
I came into the club and it was all about shifting everything. It was about reshaping the mentality, reshaping the squad and implementing a way to play. It was a very intense pre-season, there was a lot of work and I think we can see it on the pitch at the minute. We can see that we create a lot of chances every game. We have strength in the squad, but we need to stop the mistakes. We have our striker now and we have two more weeks to work with him.
We have Jamal Lewis coming back and it was Francisco Sierralta’s first game after injury. We need to get everyone on the same level and if we can get that then we can talk about winning games on that next level. We need to get the points to get that feeling and the confidence we need.
