Watford captain Troy Deeney experienced the highs and lows of football in quick succession after his stoppage-time own-goal gave Manchester United a 2-1 win at Vicarage Road on Saturday.
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Deeney had appeared to grab the home side a point when he cancelled out Memphis Depay’s early opener for the visitors by converting a penalty in the 86th minute.
Louis van Gaal’s list of injured players increased as Herrera limped off with a suspected hamstring injury in the 25th minute to be replaced by Marcos Rojo.
Ashley Young nearly handed the Hornets an equaliser, when he gave away possession sloppily, but Odion Ighalo showed a striker’s innate selfishness by firing wide with his team-mates screaming for a cross.
“At half-time I said to remove the first half, the most important thing was that we want to play another match of 45 minutes”, Flores said.
The manager also praised Memphis Depay, who played as the striker, saying: “In the first half he was superb”. And when Gomes spooned the ball away, Schweinsteiger was able to cross back into the mayhem, forcing poor Deeney to negate his own act of resistance. Herrera provided the assist with a cross from the right wing, and Memphis Depay slid in behind the defence to send his first-time shot into the top corner of the goal. Jesse Lingard, impressive in his energy, was particularly wasteful in front of goal and on another afternoon may well have cost United two points.
It became more hard for United once Herrera went off and Van Gaal was forced into a reshuffle.
In common with all Premier League matches this weekend, the French national anthem La Marseillaise was played prior to the kick-off following the Paris terror attacks of November 13. With his attack depleted by Rooney’s illness and Martial’s ankle injury, Van Gaal had to improvise and United’s dilemma was exacerbated by the absence of their normal emergency option in times of crisis, Marouane Fellaini, who was out with a calf injury. “I am very proud I am the manager of that team”. “I’m not 100 per cent convinced, I think Manchester City and Arsenal would have to struggle with injuries and form”, he said on BT Sport.
“We created a lot of chances, and personally I should have scored a couple of clear-cut chances”, Lingard added.
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“He scored it very well but it’s Deeney – what happened is possible because he’s fighting everywhere on the pitch, so he tried to remove the ball from the line of our goal”. When Arsenal signed Cech in the summer, many people said he was worth an extra 10 points to them, while this may be true, De Gea is worth an extra 20 to us.
