Quique Sanchez Flores pleased with Watford display despite West Ham defeat

Quique Sanchez Flores was happy with Watford's performance on Wednesday despite their 3-1 defeat to West Ham at Upton Park.

The Hornets manager made seven changes ahead of Sunday's FA Cup semi-final, with the likes of Troy Deeney and Odion Ighalo rested.

The visitors enjoyed 54 per cent of the ball but lacked the cutting edge their first-choice strike partnership have provided this season, and fell behind after just 11 minutes.

But Flores was still pleased with his side's performance, pointing to their dominance of possession as evidence of an encouraging display.

"It was difficult to play West Ham because they have very good players and a very good attack, and we received the first goal very quickly," Flores said.

"I think we played well today with the ball, we had good technical players on the pitch and the possession for us was good, and that means we played really well. In terms of the situation we didn't use the opportunities we had in the second half."

The visitors responded well to Andy Carroll's opener, but conceded two penalties either side of half-time that ultimately took the game beyond Flores' side.

"It was the worst part of the match," the manager added. "When we had the game under control it is difficult to control the space, to control the association between Dimitri Payet and Manuel Lanzini and we had that under control at that moment. For West Ham to score from penalties in this situation, we need to be clever."

They play Crystal Palace next as they bid to reach a first FA Cup final since 1984, and Flores says he faces a difficult decision over the squad to select for the Wembley encounter.

"We now have full players, they play in four days and we've used 20 or 22 players," he said.

"All of them are ready and all of them want to play at the weekend. They are fit, and I am very happy with the performance in the last two matches so we will try to choose well for the players who will be on the list for the weekend."