Jose’s verdict on Watford

Jose Mourinho picked some positives out of defeat in our final pre-season match at Watford on Saturday.

Heung-Min Son slotted home from the penalty spot on 79 minutes as we tried to chase down Watford’s 2-0 lead in the second half. A few late chances came and went, Dele had a penalty appeal turned down and the game ended with Paulo Gazzaniga in the Watford box for a late corner, and Sonny chasing back to clear off his own goal-line!

Earlier, Domingos Quina (20 minutes) and Andre Gray’s penalty (39) put Watford in the driving seat in a competitive fixture that saw the home side carded four times, unusual in a pre-season affair. Meanwhile, Tanguy Ndombele and Davinson Sanchez both started and got important minutes under their belts, and Sonny captained the team for the first time.

“I would say that those are the positives, players who needed minutes had them, some players played 90 minutes,” said Jose. “Also positive was that Watford took it very seriously. I liked that. They competed, they were aggressive, they made the game very hard, those are all positives.

“In the same way I wasn’t super-enthusiastic after winning three friendlies, wins that don’t give us any points, I’m not sad that we lost this one.

“I said to the players at half-time, maybe in the Premier League if we are losing 2-0 at half-time, we have the second half to fight for the result. It was a game to give us minutes and a competitive mentality and I really liked the fact that in the last minute, we are fighting to try to score, and then Sonny makes a 100-metre sprint to stop the 3-1 on the counter-attack. So, overall, it was okay.”