Javi Gracia not concerned by squad rotation after draw with Newcastle
Saturday 29 December 2018 19:14, UK
Javi Gracia insists he has no issue with making large numbers of changes to his starting XI after drawing 1-1 against Newcastle on Saturday.
Gracia made six alterations to his Watford side that lost 2-1 to Chelsea on Boxing Day with Abdoulaye Doucoure and Troy Deeney two of the standout names to not start the match.
Both players came on as substitutes in the 54th minute with Doucoure scoring a late equaliser for Watford to secure a hard-earned point.
Gracia says he does not see a problem with rotating a significant amount of his players in one go, despite having only made 21 changes in Watford's 19 Premier League matches before Saturday's fixture.
He said: "We have spoken about that [rotation] many times. All of my players are working really well. All of them when they have the chance to play well they have taken their chances.
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"I am happy with all of them because we are keeping our level thanks to all of them, not only 11 players from the beginning."
Gracia was pleased with Watford's overall performance and felt the game may have swung in their favour had Gerard Deulofeu converted from close range before Salomon Rondon's opener in the first half.
He added: "It was a difficult game. We knew before the start that after conceding the goal it was even more difficult but we had the possession. We knew we would have the possession, but it wasn't enough to control the game all the time.
"We created good chances in the beginning and when they scored their goal it was more difficult for us. We tried until the end. We created some new chances and we scored one goal for the draw.
"We started the game well. If we took the chances we had at the beginning with Gerard (Deulofeu) then maybe the game would have been different but we will never know.
"We will keep going and working hard but in the end, we got the point."
