Under-21: Daniels & Eames Speak After Hull City Defeat

Charlie Daniels and Albert Eames spoke to watfordfc.com after the Young Hornets conceded with the last kick of the game to fall to a 1-0 defeat against Hull City at Vicarage Road.

Sincere Hall struck deep into stoppage time to condemn Daniels' side to a 10th defeat of the season.

Read what the duo had to say below…

[It was] a real kick in the teeth for the lads. If you look at the performance today compared to last week it was chalk and cheese. It was really structured, the lads worked really hard in possession and out of possession. I thought today on the ball we were excellent, I thought we created a good number of chances and probably should have taken at least two of them, and then it becomes a different game.

[There was] a lapse of concentration, a lapse of structure last minute and we got punished. It is tough to take, just like any defeat. It’s one that is avoidable, it’s one that the lads should really learn from. They have to concentrate for 95 minutes and if people are hurting, and people are struggling, you have still got to do it, and hopefully they’ve learnt today that you can’t switch off at any moment of a game, and you have to take your chances.

We speak a lot about being ruthless in front of goal, and I thought we weren’t quite that today. I thought we defended really well, I thought we put in a great number of blocks, so in the defensive box I thought we were good, in the attacking box we weren’t quite at it today.

We worked a lot on it this week, but it is not just the defence, it is the midfield, it is the attack. We worked a lot on our structure, a lot on our shape, a lot on our pressing, and a lot on our recovery runs as well, so I think you saw that today. I thought the lads were excellent from start to finish, it is just a shame what happened at the end.

I think they will learn a lot from it. I think they will take a lot from a couple of bits that led to the goal. [It] could have easily been preventable, so it’s for them learning about those kind of moments where you can really slow an attack down, and just recovering and getting behind the ball, last minute of the game, when the team needs it, you have to do what is best for the team, and in that moment of time the best thing for the team was to get behind the ball, to slow their attack down and unfortunately we didn’t do that today.

[Amin Nabizada] was very good today, if he could have taken his chance it would have probably capped off a great performance. He was really disciplined, something that he is not used to, but something that we are trying to encourage him to do, out of possession and in possession you see his qualities.

He’s a very silky player, he likes to get on the ball, he likes to be in and around the ball, so for him to be in possession as much as he could today, it really helped us, not only him but all the youngsters that played today, they deserve a lot of praise.

[On 15-year-old Raul Vancea coming on] Great moment, Raul has been one we have been looking to push for this whole season. He is a great talent, he just takes everything in his stride, he has been training with us for the last week and he didn’t look out of place, and you saw when he came on the pitch, he didn’t look out of place.

He stamped his authority on the game, a little jinking run down the side, and it is just the quality that he has, for such a young age, no fear, and if he keeps going the way he is going, he is going to have a bright future.

I think we controlled it for the whole duration apart from the last minute, we had four/five good chances that we could have put away. That is what happens in football, you don’t take them and the other team go down the other end and punish you.

To be honest all the boys are gutted in there. We have worked so hard in training this week to try and put things right after the Swansea game, and then a last minute goal against [us] hurts everyone a lot.

Charlie just spoke to us in there [about learning from this]. Under-21s football is important to develop, I think that is the main thing everyone is going to take away from today, not switching off for the whole duration of the game.

People came [to] watch us last time, and to get battered, it was important for us to change things this week, and I thought we did that.

It is the whole team, we look at everyone from back to front, but not taking chances and then the last minute goal, it hurt.

It has been a good experience, we had a couple of games at the start of the season, but it is always nice to play at The Vic, hopefully more to come.

All these young players [are] coming through, I think both of them [Nabizada and Vancea] did very well, overall I think we had a young squad today, and I thought we coped very well.