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Slavisa Jokanovic hails Watford's mentality after win over Fulham

Slavisa Jokanovic the manager of Watford
Image: Slavisa Jokanovic: Praised his players after victory

Slavisa Jokanovic believed Watford showed what is needed to have a "champion mentality" after they battled to a 1-0 victory over Fulham to move to within a point of the top of the Championship.

A Troy Deeney goal after nine minutes proved to be enough for the Hornets to move level on points with second-placed Derby County, but only after Kit Symons' side pushed them all the way.

The Hornets head coach said: "Fulham gave us many, many problems but it's positive for us because we're now suffering altogether and they're working altogether.

"At the end it wasn't a brilliant game, but I must be positive and optimistic when we win some games like this tonight. I understand it's always nice winning 5-0 or 3-2 or 4-2 but sometimes it's very difficult, today was difficult for us but to have a champion mentality you must suffer altogether and win games like the kind of game we won tonight."

Despite seeing his side move to the brink of the automatic promotion places, Jokanovic is refusing to think too far ahead

"I'm thinking about Wolves [Watford's next game]," he said. There's many times you want to ask me and I'm going to answer similar. I don't know what's going to happen in May and I must be prepared for what's going to happen in the game against Wolves. I don't want to spend my energy thinking about a game against Sheffield [Wednesday] on May 2 because it's far away and there's an important job in front of us."

Having beaten Derby County on Saturday, Fulham gave another good account of themselves and Symons felt his side "deserved something out of the game".

The Cottagers boss said: "I thought a draw would have been a fair result overall. We had the better possession, a couple of more shots than them but it was pretty even-steven really. The goal we conceded was very disappointing. From their first attack really, a corner and we conceded second phase from that.

"We hadn't been defending set pieces particularly well of late and we've looked at that and it's even more frustrating, it was a second phase one, it wasn't the initial one, but Deeney's a good finisher in those situations. He peeled off around the back and the ball fell nicely for him and that was that. But we then had chances to get back into it but couldn't take them unfortunately."

Watford have now scored 70 league goals this season but Symons was pleased with the way his team coped with the Hornets' attacking threat.

He said: "Defensively I thought we did quite well tonight and limited their shots. We had more shots than them, more shots on target and better possession, more crosses, so all those things look great but ultimately it's the scoreline at the end of the day I'm really worried about and that was disappointing for us. But it was a decent performance, I've got no problem with the way we performed tonight."

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