|
"The first goal was absolutely bizarre, incredible in fact," he said. "After Scott [Loach] has come out and I see what happened, I'm wondering if it's going to be one of those games.
"We had the chance in the first 30 seconds and Marvin [Sordell] has another one. After the break we had a few and on another day we may have scored those, and that's the clinical nature of this game. For the other two we conceded we have to be more clinical in our defending as a team.
"Certainly with the chances we created today, especially the one-versus-ones, we could have scored three or four. We have to be more clinical in both boxes and a little less naive at times in terms of the way we played the pitch and the opposition.
"I think if you look at chances on our goal, even going back to Brighton and Palace games, they there have been one or two shots on goal. We've got to be resilient and put the ball in the opposition net a bit more."
Mackay was far from happy with Danny Fox's challenge on Will Buckley that earned him a yellow card from referee Tony Bates who lent somewhat to Watford for much of the afternoon.
"I've seen challenges that are ten times less ferocious than that and the player ends up off the pitch. I asked the physio what ankle it was and he said both. Will's a major threat. When you run at people regularly the opposition see that when they're scouting and they know they have to stop you.
"At Cardiff he was targeted, he should have had two penalties last week at Forest and they today it was a dreadful challenge. The boy is getting up each week and getting on with it, it will make him more resilient and make him a better player and a top, top player for this football club.
"But he should be more protected than that, I'm all for it being a man's game, absolutely, but the decisions in the last few weeks have been dreadful."
Mackay was asked about the shocking playing surface prepared for the game, better only than Scunthorpe's in the Championship. "It's our pitch and we just have to deal with it," he said. "It didn't come into it with the one-versus-ones chances.
"I've got to play what is in front of me, it is the same for both teams and it is unfortunate, but despite that we caused and created enough chances to win the game.
"The good thing is that we have a game now on Tuesday and we have to make sure that we apply ourselves in the right way and that we are more clinical in both boxes."
It's three wins in five league games for Eddie Howe as Burnley manager, and four of those five games have been away from home. He was delighted with his players this afternoon as they recorded the 3-1 win and giving us back-to-back league wins for the first time this season.
"It's a long time since we had back-to-back wins, but that's off our back now and we can go to Cardiff and hopefully make it three," he said. "A lot can be made of playing home and away, but you can only take each game as it comes and try to win them all.
"I am sure the other teams will be aware of us now. There is always a team that comes late with a good run and hopefully that can be us. The league is so tight and it's bunched up near the top. We are right in the mix and we just want to carry on that good form over the next few weeks and see where that takes us."
Howe, like Mackay, was asked about our bizarre opening goal and said: "It was certainly a strange goal. We certainly don't work on them in training, but we'll take them all day long.
"Watford pegged us back though and there were chances for both sides before we took the important one in the second half and once we got the lead again we looked quite comfortable.
"Performance wise there are things we can be better at, particularly defensively where there are areas we can work at, but overall I am delighted.
"It was always going to be a real battle, and we had to have our attitude 100 per cent right today. You don't come here and get results if it's not. But we hung in there and defended for our lives at times, and had a few moments of class. Chris Eagles, in particular, showed some real moments of class and in the end he won it for us.
"We came here to go 4-4-2 with an open game plan to try and win the game because we felt we needed to do that. We took a calculated gamble and we were without Charlie Austin who has been ill all week with a problem with his tonsils.
"But Chris Iwelumo came in and I thought we was excellent today. He played his part in the second goal and scored the third, but his all round play was extremely good and I am delighted. He has an excellent goalscoring record this season and has been a real positive influence and he has deserved his opportunity because he has trained hard.
"He has a great attitude and I can't really speak highly enough of the lad. His performance today certainly proved a point."