Roy Hodgson admitted it will be hard to pick his Watford side up after their last-gasp 2-1 home defeat by Brentford.
Pontus Jansson headed in the winner in the final moments of the fifth minute of stoppage time as Watford’s survival chances received yet another blow, leaving them six points from safety and having played two games more than 17th-placed Everton.
Christian Norgaard had given Brentford an early lead at Vicarage Road on Saturday, but his goal was cancelled out by Emmanuel Dennis’ second-half equaliser.
The nature of the defeat will make it harder to pick the players back up ahead of their crucial last six matches, the Hornets boss believes.
“I mean that is the hardest time to pick people up… it would have been pretty hard to pick them up from 1-1 because we’d have realised that the chance of those three points had eluded us and we’d only got one,” Hodgson said.
“But we could have perhaps then taken a little bit more comfort from the fact that we came very close to the three points, now when you don’t even have that comfort to use in your attempts to motivate people to continue along the same lines, it’s much harder.
“But it’s part of the job, I make no complaints about that, I knew when I signed up for it that that would be part of the job but there is certainly no easy answer to your question, or certainly no words that I can use which will change the situation.
“We’ve got to go out in the next six games and play in the same vein as we did in the second 45 minutes today.”
Thomas Frank was pleased with his side’s points tally for the season – which now sits at 39 – but admits he wants more from his squad as they go into the final games of the season.
“I’m very pleased for the 39 points, of course, very pleased,” the Bees boss said.
“It’s a tricky one because we always wanted to be an asset to the Premier League, we always wanted to be as high as possible, or aim as high as possible, always wanted to focus on the next game, always have that laser focus.
“And I think that’s why we are on 39 points, that’s why we did well in the beginning, that’s why we came through the wobble, that’s why we are doing very well now and only focusing on the next training and our next game.
“I’m just happy that we are on a decent amount of points, but I want more.”
