Claudio Ranieri delivers verdict on potential Watford penalty; explains Dennis sub

Claudio Ranieri has been speaking to the media after Watford’s narrow 1-0 defeat to Tottenham at Vicarage Road.

The Hornets were closing in on a valuable point before Davinson Sanchez struck deep into stoppage time. The centre-back connected with a Son Heung-min free-kick to beat Daniel Bachmann from close range.

During a post-match interview with BBC Match of the Day, Ranieri said: “I am very proud, also our fans should be proud because the team played a fight until the end. The first half wasn’t so good when we wanted to counter attack, we missed too many passes, the second half we created two or three chances.

“I never thought we would concede a goal with a header, with all my tall players, we closed all the space, they have to cross and my players can take the ball. What a pity, that is football and we continue to fight. We are alive and we will survive.

“The match against West Ham I trained one day in 15 days all together, that was very difficult to create the atmosphere and feeling, today they wanted to react and the match is a positive. Only the result is a negative.”

Ranieri also spoke about influential striker Emmanuel Dennis, who went off at the interval.

“He had a little problem, then I saw him a little nervous, so I prefer to change him and Joao Pedro played very well,” Ranieri added.

Dennis saga finished, says Ranieri

“The board spoke with the national team of Nigeria, that is it finished. Maybe disappointed, all the players want to go to play for their national team, but also want to stay here – a little bit disappointed, a little bit happy to stay here.”

Watford felt they should have had a penalty with 10 minutes to play. Pedro raced onto a ball in the box and seemed to be brought down by Spurs keeper Hugo Lloris.

Despite their appeals, nothing was given by the referee. On the issue, Ranieri said: “I always agree with the referee, that is my philosophy on football.”

Watford ‘felt comfortable’ against Spurs – Cathcart

Meanwhile, Watford’s Craig Cathcart told Sky Sports: “It is difficult to concede that late on, I felt like we would have had a clean sheet, all through the game we felt comfortable.

“We have been leaking goals so we needed to regroup and we did that, we had a couple of chances here and there to nick a goal.”

Watford’s next game is a trip to Leicester in the FA Cup on Saturday January 8. Their next league match is against fellow strugglers Newcastle the following weekend.

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