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Sky Bet Championship: Slavisa Jokanovic eyes Watford improvement despite win

SAITAMA, JAPAN - MARCH 12:  Slavisa Jokanovic Jankovic,coach of Muangthong United looks on during the AFC Champions League Group F match between Urawa Red
Image: Slavisa Jokanovic: Hailed his side's reaction

Head coach Slavisa Jokanovic praised Watford's "good reaction" after they came from behind to beat Millwall 3-1 and return to the top of the Sky Bet Championship.

The Hornets trailed through Martyn Woolford's 12th-minute goal, but were in front by the interval following goals from Matej Vydra and Daniel Tozser. And Gianni Munari made sure of the win after the break.

"I am very happy because my team won three points," Jokanovic said. "Especially I'm happy because we had a very good reaction after the Millwall goal. These three points are very important for us. I believe we can improve. We can still play better.

"We have some problems at the beginning. And after this problem what we found at the beginning of the game and after Millwall scored the goal, step by step we started improving and we had a good reaction.

"I am happy because we won three points, but it's important for us to improve. It's easier working in the situation after we won the game. In front of us is some [time] where we try to use it to be better than we were today."

Millwall boss Ian Holloway was critical of the performance of referee Robert Madley, and was also disappointed with how his players reacted when decisions did not go in their favour.

"Eighteen years I've been a manager and that's probably the hardest one I've had to stomach, to be honest," he said. "I think our football supporters are normally quite right and quite accurate and our fans got it right [with the chants they directed towards the referee].

"You've got to be able to deal with it. We got too emotionally involved with things and I think that's summed up by their third goal. I said at half-time 'keep your heads, keep going'. I thought we came out and looked a really good team. They dropped off a bit, but we needed the next goal in the game.

"A strange free-kick was given and two or three my lads were still arguing about it when they took it - you can't do that. You've got to deal with whatever he gives you. If you can stop that and get the next goal then it all makes sense. The ref didn't score, did he?

"But it's really strange where Troy Deeney says that isn't a foul. If it's a foul he's a last man and then it's a red card and not a yellow card."

Holloway was referring to the incident that led to Watford's second goal when Alan Dunne, who was the last defender, was adjudged to have fouled Troy Deeney, but he added: "The second half killed us because we came out, had a good go but we needed that goal. If we'd have got back level then... how we've lost by two goals, I don't know."

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