Confidence at De Kuip is high following a 100 per cent start to the domestic campaign and Thursday night’s 1-0 home win over Manchester United in their opening Europa League group match. “I’m a new manager here at Watford, but slowly we are going to build great things”. I think they shouldn’t need an extra source of motivation.
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A 79th minute victor from Tonny Vilhena gave the Dutch side their first win over an English opponent in 14 years.
“Euro final, no pre-season, holidays, come back – it’s normal that in the first week he had very good impact in the first game (in United’s 2-0 win over Southampton)”.
Paul Pogba disappointed in Manchester United’s double losses to Manchester City and Feyenoord.
Thursday’s game, when United played without him in a 4-3-3 formation, showed that the alternatives are not always more fruitful.
After a strong start to their season Manchester United find themselves on a two-game losing streak and Watford’s impressive four-goal comeback against West Ham on Saturday means the Red Devils need to be wary of Walter Mazzarri’s side. I am here to try to stop them from being in a negative mood because we lost two matches. After conceding the second fewest goals outside of the top six last season, four games in Watford are yet to keep a clean sheet and have conceded more goal than anyone outside of the bottom four.
“In the second half, I think we matched that but we need to do that earlier to give ourselves a better platform to win the game”.
Ajax, who start the weekend’s fixtures in third place, are also not in action until Sunday, when they travel to Heracles looking to build on their Europa League success away to Panathinaikos. That is the point I am trying to make here.
The response from United in the derby last weekend was positive.
And so, United’s vast, opulent luxury liner came crashing upon the rocks as the likes of Paul Pogba, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and the truly abysmal Memphis Depay repeatedly fell at the first hurdle in their attempts to claw back parity. I like the mentality here in the United Kingdom, coaches in Italy should be more like that.
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There were a handful of late chances but Smalling knows it was too little too late in a match where they were too often outbattled.
