Winger offers honest assessment to Hornets loss
Liam Feeney was unable to hide his disappointment as Bolton Wanderers suffered a last-minute 4-3 defeat against promotion-chasing Watford.
The 28-year-old set up all three of the Whites’ goals against the Hornets including Zach Clough’s 85th minute equaliser, which had seemed to earn Neil Lennon’s side a share of the points, only for substitute Troy Deeney to snatch victory for Watford in stoppage-time.
And with defeat signalling the end of Bolton’s unbeaten league record at Macron Stadium under the Northern Irishman, Feeney conceded the Trotters’ performance on the day against the play-off hopefuls offered little consolation.
“It was a good test for us against a strong side,” said the winger. “You can gauge where you are and I think, despite the result, we were easily the better team.
“It was a great game for the neutral to watch but that offers little consolation to us. From our perspective on the pitch it is not what we want.
“We want to win these sort of games at home. We shouldn’t be conceding this many goals, especially at home, and we should have put the game to bed when we were ahead. We had more than enough chances.
“There are some positives for us to take but things for us to work and improve on as well. To get three goals against a good team like Watford is a positive.
“However, the goals we conceded were avoidable. That isn’t a criticism of either the defence or the strikers. We are united as a team but it’s a sickener and hard to take when you lose like that.”
Feeney continued: “It was nice to create all three goals, especially on a day like this. Zach’s in great form at the moment while Alfie is too. They both took their goals well.
“You just hope those goals and assists get you the win and it is unfortunate that that that didn’t really happen for us. The most important thing is the result and we are disappointed that we didn’t get it.
“As a team we need to put away our chances but if we don’t put them away we need to defend better as a team as well. We didn’t do well enough on either count. We know we can all do better.”