Cup run an unbelievable journey – Flores

Leeds boss Steve Evans reveals that Scott Wootton was “distraught” and apologised to the club’s players and staff after his own goal saw them knocked out of the FA Cup.

It is the first time the Hornets have reached the sixth round in nearly a decade, and their run in the cup, coupled with their impressive league form, has earned Flores and his side plenty of plaudits this season.

Success, who now plays for the Spanish side Granada, has been linked with a move to Watford, a club owned by the Pozzo family who also own the Italian Serie A side Udinese.

While Watford recorded their third 1-0 victory in football’s oldest cup competition in as many games, there was more than a hint of luck about their winning goal.

The decisive moment in this game came seven minutes after the break with a freaky own goal from Scott Wootton who bizarrely put into his own net when under no pressure from Ben Watson’s cross. It seems that Watford, in cricket parlance, are getting them in singles – all the way to Wembley, perhaps, in a season when they have confounded expectations.

If you came here in the first half, you’d have thought Leeds United were the Premier League team.

“I think the performance was good”. We respect this competition a lot and we want to advance into the next round. Watford had started on top, but without the potent Ighalo, lacked a cutting edge, and as the opening half wore on and the rain continued to fall it was the Championship side enjoying the best of the possession. Had Etienne Capoue not had an effort disallowed for a foul by Deeney, Watford could have relaxed a little but in the event Leeds, 16th in the Championship, were nearly as toothless in a wind-assisted second half as in the first.

“They are completely ready to be protagonists in the team, they are very important players”, he said.

“To win the match is the most important thing for us, and to avoid a replay for us”.

When asked about the possibility of Watford losing Ighalo, Flores said, “I don’t want to think like this, I am a really positive person”.

He said: “We are in the task to correct our shape, our system and now we are focusing more on our team than the other team, but that is not just in the FA Cup”.