Derby County-Watford: Reaction

Not for the first time in Malky Mackay's reign at Vicarage Road Watford came back from an away game off the back of a hiding, though individual errors were to blame for a game that could've been quite different.

'We gave a poor first goal away and the second was a deflection which gave us a mountain to climb at that point.

'But we made a couple of changes at half-time and I thought for 20 minutes we really got involved in the game, got back to 2-1 and had the chances to go to 2-2.

'But we then lost a poor goal as far as we are concerned and that allowed Derby to gain a bit of confidence and start playing the ball about.'

Opposing manager Nigel Clough was full of praise for two-goal winger-cum-second forward, Tomasz Cywka. The former Wigan man signed on a permanent basis this Summer after an impressive loan and has been putting a shift in on the training ground:

'He takes a bag of balls on his own after training and practices with his left foot. He did it yesterday and he never scored one, even without a goalkeeper.

'But he does it because he knows he has to work on his left foot and it gives him the confidence to have a go like he did with his second goal, it was a magnificent strike.'

The former Burton Albion manager also spoke of his decision to leave Finnish cap Shefki Kuqi on the bench. Kuqi came of the bench to grab the Rams decisive third:

'Shefki Kuqi was disappointed because he thought he was going to start today with Luke Moore out, but we wanted a different sort of striker up there to get around the centre-halves' feet and be a nuisance in another way.'

Watford will have to put the glaring errors of this defeat to the back of their mind as they take on Nottingham Forest at the Vic' on Saturday, a side with only two league defeats since August, one of them Saturday's reverse at Portsmouth.

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