If ever there was a case of needing to look beyond the bare scoreline, then it was Watford Women’s 5-1 FA Cup fourth round defeat at Arsenal yesterday.
The Gunners are one of the best teams in the world and their starting XI yesterday were all full internationals with 750 caps between them.
Last season, at the same stage of the competition, they thumped Leeds United 9-0.
So, while losing by four goals is never enjoyable, head coach Damon Lathrope felt his team emerged with much credit.
“In the grand scheme of things, I think it was a good day. I really do,” he said.
“You have to be realistic: we were playing against some of the best talent in the world. Arsenal went super strong with their line-up, the strongest team they could have fielded.
“We hadn’t played a competitive match for nearly a month, and that combined with a lot of other factors could have made it a very difficult day.
“But we’ve come away with lots of positives and a very respectable performance from ourselves.”
Watford stuck to their way of playing the game, passing out from the back, looking to retain possession and refused to simply put everyone behind the ball and try to hold on.
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“A lot of the girls were saying that some of the Arsenal players were telling them on the pitch that they aren’t used to teams trying to pass the ball against them,” said Lathrope.
“Teams generally park the bus and get bodies behind the ball.
“Their players were shocked, in a good way, that we had an element of success in doing what we did against them and we were brave enough to try it.”
Of course, even Lathrope could have been excused for fearing the worst when Arsenal raced into a 2-0 lead after only 12 minutes.
“The only way that the day could really have been unsuccessful and disappointing is if we had lost by a big scoreline – and at this stage of the FA Cup over the years, a lot of teams have,” he said.
“So when we were two down after 12 minutes your first thought is that you don’t want things to get out of hand.
“But our players managed the game much better after that early spell.
“It was quite clear to see that in the first 20 or 25 minutes there was a bit of fear in our players. There was that realisation that they were playing against some of the best players in the world.
“They were clearly wondering if they could compete, but once they’d got through that 25 minutes or so and managed to get some time on the ball then the players realised they could try and play their own game.
“After that, they went on to give a really good representation of themselves.”
Watford recovered so well that entering the final five minutes they were only 3-1 down.
“I was so disappointed that we let those two really late goals in, because from my perspective our performance after going down 2-0 was that we were drawing 1-1 with Arsenal’s full-strength team for 70-odd minutes,” Lathrope reflected.
“I’m not saying that 3-1 was a reflection on the control and chances Arsenal had, but it would have made the players really feel the day had been a super success by holding Arsenal to 3-1 at their ground.
“But 5-1 was probably a fairer reflection on the game, although had we kept it at 3-1 it would have been amazing.”
Now the attention has to turn to the remaining 10 Championship games, as Watford are currently bottom of the table and five points from safety.
“There’s quite a lot of positives we can take away into the remaining league games, and I said that to the players afterwards,” Lathrope pointed out.
“We have learned from the game and taken good things from it, and it could easily have gone wrong and we could have ended up feeling very disappointed and negative.
“We learned that we will have to be comfortable, at times, not to have the ball. We can’t see it as being unsuccessful if the opposition have more possession.
“Also, we’ve probably run more in yesterday’s game than we did in our three previous league games combined because of the nature of the opposition.
“Most of all, we have to take huge confidence that for spells in the second half we picked Arsenal off. They pressed very high against us, and they had a group of exceptionally talented athletes the standard of which we will not come up against in our division.
“And yet at times we were able to play around their press and play some attractive football of our own.
“When we sit back and reflect on the game, there are bundles of positives to be taken and I know that’s the way the players feel.
“But now we have to take those positives, park yesterday and put our focus into the remaining league games.”
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