Evening Standard

Janmaat: Watford planning to halt Chelsea’s charge to glory

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apologised. Only a moment of liance denied them a point.

Walter Mazzarri’s side were tough to break down and almost salvaged a draw in injury time when defender Sebastian Prodl hit the crossbar.

Janmaat believes their performanc­e showed they can make it tough going for leaders Chelsea when they travel to Stamford Bridge on May 15.

Chelsea could be looking to clinch the title in their penultimat­e game of the season and few give Watford much chance of upsetting the Blues in their bid to finish above Tottenham.

But Janmaat feels Watford can cause Chelsea problems. He said: “It is a different game to Liverpool, it is away from home, but I think we can.

“We have shown we can compete with big teams in this League. We played well against the big teams and last night we deserved more.

“It was a good goal, maybe one of the best of the season. We could have

bril- scored at the end but unfortunat­ely hit the crossbar. We have to move forward now. We can take some positives from it because we played against a good team.”

Deeney accused his Watford teammates of playing like they were on a computer game after they lost at 10-man Hull and again apologised for that performanc­e in his programme notes ahead of the Liverpool game.

Watford offered little ambition or quality against Liverpool but at least made it tough for the visitors, and Janmaat was pleased with their reaction.

“We played a good game but we missed a bit of luck,” said the defender. “You can always stop a goal but sometimes you have to give credit to a goal like this. I think a draw would have been a good result. It was unlucky they scored a goal like that.”

Watford remain on 40 points and need five more from their remaining four games to equal their record Premier League total from last season. Mazzarri believed Watford deserved a draw and said the officials cost the hosts a point.

“I liked my team a lot,” said the Italian. “We played against a team who always create five or six goals and we did not deserve to lose.

“Usually I don’t like to speak about luck but today we were completely unlucky.

“Aside from the crossbar from Prodl, there were two mistakes from the referee, offsides against Stefano Okaka and Troy Deeney, so I think we played a good game.”

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dramatic scissors kick was enough to win the game for Liverpool
Cut to pieces: Emre Can’s dramatic scissors kick was enough to win the game for Liverpool

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