Mark Hughes says Watford were 'better' than Stoke
Saturday 24 October 2015 19:20, UK
Mark Hughes admits he never saw Stoke's loss to Watford coming, and concedes his players lost to the better team.
The Britannia Stadium manager marked his 100th game in charge of the club with a surprise defeat on Saturday, off the back of three consecutive wins.
Stoke were touted by many as home bankers against a side which had only scored six Premier League goals in nine games.
But Troy Deeney broke his top-flight duck to set the visitors on their way before Almen Abdi sealed a deserved victory for the visitors.
That left Hughes at a loss to explain what had gone wrong - but he was in no doubt his team had not deserved anything from the encounter.
He said: "We weren't very good today and we didn't really affect the game to any great extent. We were a little bit slow and methodical right through the team.
"We made it easy for Watford to close us down. Their game plan was to come here and work hard, put people behind the ball and obviously they had a threat with the two guys up front.
"Philipp (Wollscheid) was unfortunate to slip at an inopportune moment and they get a goal. Marc (Wilson) then makes an individual error and being 2-0 down made it even more difficult for us.
"Irrespective of those two errors, we weren't good enough and didn't show any real power and drive in our play which has been evident in every game we've played so far.
"This performance was one I don't think anybody saw coming. We draw a line under it - if it were an ongoing thing, then we would be more worried.
"But we take this as a one-off. We won't accept it happening again and we will be better next time out."
Stoke lost Geoff Cameron after just nine minutes with a thigh strain and Hughes believes that upset his side.
He added: "I think it is fair to say that probably disrupted us, but we can't hide behind that. There were good players on the pitch today and we should have done better."
