Burnley were beaten 3-1 by Watford on Sunday
Sunday 19 August 2018 17:15, UK
Sean Dyche believes midfielder Will Hughes should have been sent off at the end of the first half before he scored in Watford's 3-1 win against Burnley.
The 23-year-old produced a wonderful solo strike in the 50th minute to round off the victory, after Andre Gray and Troy Deeney had scored their opening two goals and James Tarkowski nodded home the Burnley reply.
But Hughes was booked in the 41st minute for a crunching tackle on Stephen Ward just in front of the dugouts, wrapping his legs around those of the Burnley defender, much to the dismay of Dyche.
Speaking to Sky Sports, he said: "We gave them two out of the three, for sure. Will Hughes scored a great goal but he shouldn't have been on the pitch.
"I saw the tackle, I'm right on top of it and I don't think he's even on the pitch when he makes the tackle, it's that far off the pitch on Stephen Ward, but the referee made a decision and decided not to send him off.
"We were certainly part of our own downfall today. We didn't start the first three or four minutes of the game right. The rest of the first half, I thought we were very good and the first five or six minutes of the second half, we started a bit soft.
"We were waiting for the game to come our way. It doesn't work like that, you've got to make sure the game comes your way.
"After that, we kept playing, but we couldn't quite open them up. Obviously, they've got a lot of men behind the ball then and played on the counter, which they did well at times. I'm disappointed but more in the case that we gave the game away rather than them having to earn too much."
The result comes after Burnley qualified for the Europa League play-off rounds with a 1-0 aggregate victory against Istanbul Basaksehir, but Dyche is hoping his side can avoid the fatigue and poor form that can plague sides juggling European and domestic football.
"I think the story started months ago, it doesn't start now. Everyone is obsessed with that story and our job is not to be part of it," he added.
"We want to go beyond that. In my eyes, it's so far, so good and our pre-season went very well actually when you look at the Europa and then last week's performance against Southampton.
"A lot of today's performance, I actually liked and at half-time, we certainly deserved to be at 1-1, if not in front. But we can't give goals away like we did in the second half and you still need decisions to go your way.
"A lot of the play was right today but the key moments were wrong and you can't afford to do that."
