Walter Mazzarri believes that any team would find themselves in difficulty if they had the same injury list as Watford slumped to a 4-1 defeat on New Year's Day.
The Hornets struggled to put a team out as 10 players were sidelined through injury and to make Mazzarri’s problems worse, he lost Juan Zuniga in the warm up prior to the game. The injury meant that Watford had to change to a 3-5-2 formation as Odion Ighalo moved into the team.
The Italian blamed his side’s humiliating defeat on the team's the injury problems as the visitors took full advantage of an unsettled Watford team. Dele Alli and Harry Kane notched up braces as Tottenham Hotspur could have capitalised on more chances.
Mazzarri explained his concern as “we are missing 10 players, including five from our starting XI”. Watford’s injury problems were epitomized by the fact they had “four under-23s with us today who had never trained with the team”.
Mazzarri did not pick up when asked how his team will handle Stoke next. He commented that “I don’t know how it will go” as “Stoke of course had one more day to rest” which will make it harder to get a result.
Congratulations to Tottenham
Walter Mazzarri could not help praise his side’s opposition as they put four goals past the Hornets. Mazzarri commented that “every mistake we made, we paid the highest price” explaining “especially in the first half, they had three chances and scored three times”.
He continued to say that “aside from hitting the crossbar, every chance they had, the managed to do something with it. So congratulations to them”.
The Italian further believed that luck was not on his teams side as “nothing went our way” and “after they scored, congratulations to them, they are a great team and they managed to win, which they deserved”.