Valérien Ismaël spoke to the media following Watford’s late comeback win at Blackburn Rovers.
Substitutes Mileta Rajović and Rhys Healey both scored in the game's latter stages to overturn a third-minute Adam Wharton strike as the Hornets won a third consecutive away game.
Covering a range of topics, including his team's belief and the form of his strikers, read what the Head Coach had to say below…
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On the belief of his players at 1-0 down:
We’ve experienced the game before when we were down 2-0 against Norwich after 15 minutes, and then we came back into the game. We have the belief in the team that we can come back at any time.
The work we showed in the second half is what I expected from my team. What we showed in the first half, it is alarming for everyone to show that we can’t drop our performance. We were too sloppy and lost the ball, our decision making was too slow and we didn’t move the ball quickly like we expected.
We are an attacking team, we need the ball to play, so when you lose the ball and don’t win the duels, then there is a build up for the opponents. At the end, I am very pleased that we shifted the mentality.
On the form of his strikers:
We have three number nines who have scored 16 goals altogether right now. Not one player has scored more than 10 goals so it shows our quality that we can spread the goals around many players and everyone is involved.
We need everyone, we are a squad, not just a team with 11 players. Everyone is important for us and they have to be focused.
On two more late goals for the Hornets:
The first thing is the belief, the second thing is that the fitness levels from the players are really high, and the third thing is the ability from our squad.
Last week [against Preston] we were more stable and needed more defenders [from the bench]. When you have so many attacking players on the bench, we have a better chance to impact the game.
Today we saw with Asprilla, he came on and had an impact. We have managed him well the last few weeks as he was tired but now he is back on that level.
On winning the final game before Christmas:
Now is the best time of year with the family, but with a win it will put a smile on our faces; for the fans, the people working for the club, the players. We can enjoy with the family, recharge the batteries and go again on Tuesday [against Bristol City].
It will be another difficult game but we are back at home in front of our fans. Now it’s all about pushing, keeping that level with 100 per cent from our performances. If we do that it will give us more chance to win the game.
