Newcastle United Boss Rafa Benitez Insists His Team Must Work Harder After 3-0 Loss to Watford

Newcastle United manager Rafa Benitez has insisted his team must 'work harder and better' after their embarrassing 3-0 loss to Watford at St James Park on Saturday.

The loss was the Magpies' fourth consecutive defeat with a troublesome December fixture list including Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester City ahead.

Speaking in his post-match press conference to the Chronicle, Rafa said: "Everybody needs to know that if we want to improve, we have to work harder and better, that’s it.

"It's something that we have to realise could happen, that you could lose games because we are in the Premier League and it’s another level."

Benitez attempted to decipher the defeat, but ended up admitting that they were their own worst enemy.

"Everybody knew they were doing well and we needed to be strong, to be solid, and we made a mistake. We started well, but we made a mistake, we conceded the first goal and then you have to go forward.

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"The reaction of the team was good. We were pushing, we were pressing and on top of them, but the second goal changed everything.

"In the second half, you have to take more risks and we conceded another goal, quite open and then it was more difficult for us to react and to do the right things because at the end when you are under pressure, the anxiety makes you make more mistakes."

Watford left-back Marvin Zeegelaar caused Newcastle all sorts of problems, but refused to blame his right hand side of Matt Ritchie and DeAndre Yedlin - who scored an own goal - for the defeat.

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"We had a couple of runs that were dangerous and they scored the first goal, but at the same time, we were also attacking from that side, so it’s a question of who takes their chances.

"We had some chances, we didn’t take our chances; they had two or three and they scored three."

Newcastle travel to West Brom on Tuesday as they look to bounce back quickly and avoid dropping into a relegation battle.