Thibaut Courtois spoke about several aspects of the game and the need to continue to work hard in training after Monday night’s defeat at Watford.
Our goalkeeper was beaten four times at Vicarage Road, three of the opposition goals coming late on and soon after Eden Hazard had equalised a first-half penalty that had been conceded just before half-time. However, Courtois agreed with Antonio Conte in believing the overall performance had been lacking before Chelsea had gone behind, and prior to Tiemoue Bakayoko’s sending off on half-an-hour.
‘Our start was not the best one, we lost too many balls, easy passes that went wrong,’ said Courtois, who had doubts over the correctness of the decision to award one of the two yellow cards that resorted in Bakayoko’s dismissal. He also did not think he deserved to give away the spot-kick.
‘He [Gerard Deulofeu] was just before me to the ball and I tried to make myself as small as possible and I think he just leaves his foot there, and I don’t think that should be a penalty,’ said Courtois.
‘Our first half was not so good but then second half we tried to fight with 10 men and we got a bit more possession, and then the goal came and that was good,’ he continued. ‘Then, instead of looking quickly for the second goal, we should have maybe regrouped a bit more, defended a bit, have a few minutes with the ball and then maybe attack them again. But I think the second goal was a bit too easy and so it was a difficult match for us. Now we have to work hard again and hope that the victories come again because it was a bad week.’
Courtois believes the team has found it harder to achieve positive results and play positive football since conceding right at the end of the league draw at Arsenal, in what was a good performance at the start of last month, but added:
‘We had some good games, a lot of draws and two losses and we have to find our form from before the new year again, and hopefully it will get better.
‘We believe in him [Antonio Conte] and we believe in our team. We have two bad results and we just try to get back, regroup and just continue. We showed that we wanted to fight even with 10 men and that shows we have character, but when you lose twice like that it is not good and there are questions raised, but we go back to training with the manager, and training well and turn this situation around.
‘Obviously we are disappointed with the two results we have had in the last week, obviously it is not good but we have to regroup in training, have heads high and continue the hard work and just continue what we were doing. We have now two bad losses but we are a team with the manager, and everyone is positive about that, and we will try to do our best to win next week.
‘We have to say thank you to the fans as well who for 96 minutes they were singing and supporting the team, when we were losing as well.’
