Dele: "Pull together, then it's only a matter of time"

Sweat still dripping, Dele wore a stony-faced look of disappointment as he began to dissect our 1-1 draw against Watford in the Premier League on Saturday, despite grabbing the late equaliser himself just minutes earlier.

Making his first league start of the season, Dele was perseverance personified, calling on his goalscoring instinct to take advantage of a mix-up between Ben Foster and Kiki Femenia to control and convert from a tight angle with four minutes remaining. It might have been his first goal of the season, and first since January, but let’s not forget Dele, still 23, now has 54 goals in 189 appearances for us.

His goal sparked hope of a late, Villa-esque revival but it wasn’t to be this time as Watford, defensively sound throughout barring the goal, held on for their point having taken the lead as early as the sixth minute.

“It’s a point, but we need to win these games,” stated Dele, honest in his appraisal as always. “We know that as a team and we’re disappointed. We dominated the game. They didn’t make it easy for us, but this is the Premier League and no-one will just let you have the win.

“We know where we have to improve, there were times in the game where it wasn’t good enough but I don’t think you could question the effort, we worked hard, it’s just one of those things, we have to stay together and keep working hard on the training field.

“We’re not panicking, we know the quality we have in this team and we believe in ourselves, we believe in the coaching staff and we are working hard every day. We just have to make sure we show our character to get out of this tough patch we’re in.

“Everyone’s had it before, this is our first time, maybe it might look strange to people because they are used to us winning games all the time but this is where we have to show our character, our mentality and pull together as a team and as a Club and then it’s only a matter of time.”