Watford goalkeeper Daniel Bachmann has said his gallant penalty-saving performance against Oxford United was completely down to instinct and not something he had worked on.

The Austrian shot-stopper denied the home side three times from the spot to see the Hornets progress to the third round of the Carabao Cup after Ken Sema's late equaliser forced the game into a shootout.

Speaking after the match, the keeper said he does not practise saving penalties and that intuition was the key to his success.

"That's something as a goalkeeper you really don't practise," he said. "Maybe once a week after a training session, a couple of players take some penalties, but that's more for them rather than for us. Penalties is one thing that you don't really practise because it's 11 yards, no defenders, dead ball, there's not much that can go wrong for a striker really. It did tonight.

"You go with your instinct, you look at the players before, at their record, what sides they go and it worked well tonight."

Harrow Times:

Although he recognised how much of an important part he played in the victory, Bachmann was also quick to praise his teammates, who he believes showed great character to come from behind, even after they went down to ten men when defender Marc Navarro limped off with a hamstring injury after all three substitutes had been made.

"We knew from the beginning it was going to be a tough game and obviously we were a bit off it in the first-half," he said. "We sorted things out kind of in the second and pulled through and showed a lot of character to go ten men down with the last 25 minutes left and still end up going through. That was the most positive thing, that we got through.

"It's always nice if you have saves to make and you do make them. I always say, that's our job, to make the saves, that's what we're here for, to be the last line of defence and it obviously feels nice to have made those saves and kept us in the game towards the end and then the penalties, they're always something special for a goalkeeper. To save three in a row, I'm not going to lie, that was nice. After the third one, I walked away to the side, and I said to myself: 'what's going on here, how's that happening?'"

The 26-year-old is hoping that this performance, as well as the one in the friendly victory over Tottenham, have given coach Vladimir Ivic something to think about when selecting his teams.

"I'm ready to play, I think I've showed that over the last few weeks and I want to play. That's not a secret, I'm here to play and all I can do is push Ben [Foster]. Obviously I don't know what's going to happen on Saturday, there probably won't be a change, which is fair enough. I'm going to have to play well again on Tuesday and continue training hard and pushing Ben and hopefully play soon.

"It's tough not playing for so long and it's not easy, especially when you always want to play, you always feel you're ready. It's tough.

"I'm just glad to have played a couple of 90 minutes in the last couple of weeks with the Spurs game and then tonight, it's obviously good to get some rhythm. I'm ready to play now and I think I've shown in the last few weeks that I am."