Get in! That was just what we needed on Saturday.
It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t convincing, but that doesn’t matter. We needed a win against Watford, and we got what we needed.
When you’re six without a win, performances become irrelevant. It’s all about grinding out the result, and that’s what we did for the first time this season. It was sleeves up and everyone together.
Elland Road was a nervy place, you could sense that, but the confidence the lads will take from Saturday should be massive.
We got the early goal – I’ve always spoken about how important Diego Llorente is, I just didn’t think it would be at that end – then we dug in. We should have had a penalty for a foul on Dan James and had that been given I think we’d have gone on to win comfortably.
When Watford had the ball in the net you feared the worst for a minute, but I think it was the right call to disallow the goal and not just because I’m biased. Liam Cooper and the Watford player were all over each other and when they went to ground, they basically prevented Meslier from being able to get the ball. In my view it was the right decision, but you could see why Watford were aggrieved.
We dug in superbly well and stuck at. I have to be honest and I was surprised by Watford. For me, they looked like the team without the win. They were like rabbits caught in the headlights at times, didn’t want the ball and took too many wrong decisions.
But that’s what we needed, and we had to capitalise which we did. We dominated possession and we also got in plenty of crosses, but like I’ve said, it’s not about analysing the performance. Winning was all that mattered.
The difference between going into the international break with a win rather than still searching for your first is absolutely huge, and hopefully that can be a springboard for us now.
Psychologically it’s huge for us, and there are four teams below us who are still without win. Let’s hope we can build on that now and move forwards.
