Assistant manager Dean Holden has reflected on the loss to Watford, but also spoken about how he believes we go into the Manchester City tie with confidence.
Heading to Vicarage Road for the FA Cup third round tie, a much changed side suffered a three nil defeat but for Holden he certainly felt we could take plenty of positives from the match.
Not least because we saw debuts from Opi Edwards and Connor Lemonheigh-Evans.
Speaking to the Official Site as he met the media post game, Holden explained.
‘Watford had the quality in the final third. We’ve come to a Premier League opposition who have gone pretty much full strength as they’ve made only a few changes and we made quite a few. They experienced a lot of possession in the first half but we got more on the front foot in the second half. At 2-0 we had chances to get back into the game; Matty Taylor had a header and Gustav Engvall had a chance, maybe there’s a shout for a penalty, so if we score at 2-0 it could be a different game.’
He went on to say.
‘That’s ‘ifs and buts’ but we’ve thrown caution to the wind, they’ve got a third and on paper it’s a 3-0 defeat but we’ve got four academy lads that have started today and you can see the DNA and the philosophy of the club, the way they play and handle themselves. That’s fantastic going forward. Of course, we’re hugely disappointed to be going out of the FA Cup but we’ve had an incredible schedule and we have huge games to come. It’s a difficult position that we find ourselves in, as staff to pick teams at this point of the season. You want to go as strong as you can every single game, we saw in the Aston Villa that some of the lads were struggling from the schedule that we’ve had so we picked a team that could give it a right good go and we did that today.’
There was obviously praise for the travelling fans.
‘We want to win every game and the FA Cup is a huge competition – everybody looks forward to it. For now we are disappointed but the main thing is we’ve given it a good go. Tthe travelling support was behind us right until the final whistle which is great to see. The young lads would have gained experienced today, coming up against a very good Premier League team. The senior lads who played with them were helping them along too and it was good signs.’
Turning attentions to Manchester City.
‘It’s going to be an incredible night for the club with almost 8,000 of our supporters going to the Etihad Stadium – that’s the biggest away following that stadium will have ever seen so you can imagine the atmosphere and excitement they are going to create. We’ve got make sure that we go and perform there like we have done in most games this season. It’s dependant on which side Manchester City put out and we’ll see on the night. We’ll prepare as best we can. We can only focus on us.’
Adding.
‘We’ve beaten four Premier League teams so we take huge confidence from that. We’re disappointed to have lost against Watford on Saturday but our performance, certainly in the second half, warranted a goal to get back into the game and we’ll take confidence from that as well, going into Tuesday.’
