Slaven Bilic said he was disappointed and he expected his players to feel the same after watching victory at Burnley slip from their grasp in stoppage time.

The Hornets looked set to take all three points and hand the league leaders their first home defeat of the season courtesy of Joao Pedro’s 31st-minute goal.

But four minutes into stoppage time the hosts scrambled an equaliser from a corner and what would have been a lovely Valentine’s Day turned into something far less romantic.

“Of course it feels like a defeat when you are so close to a win,” he said.

“Now and tomorrow I told the guys I want them to feel disappointed because I am disappointed big time. I’m gutted.

“But tonight also shows what we can do. If we come into every game with same spirit, the same organisation, the same attitude, the same mentality – and then add a bit more quality – we can achieve a lot.

“There are still 42 points to play for and the way we approached tonight should be the standard for us to go like this into every game.

“We are disappointed because we were so close to winning away against the leaders, but we didn’t manage the last six minutes.

“Of course, we are talking about those last six minutes because they scored a goal.

“In those six minutes when you are playing against a good team but who, like any other team, lost shape and were either attacking or defending, we should have kept the ball in the middle of the park and just moved from side to side.

“Or the corner – manage it better. We didn’t manage it well. We needed one more moment of last-ditch defending, we didn’t do it.

“They equalised because of their physicality. They were bringing on players who kept the same qualities and were keeping them there. We didn’t have that.

“In those last five minutes we just couldn’t resist against that physicality."

The game started somewhat worryingly with Daniel Bachmann denying Burnley twice in the same attack inside the first minutes, and Watford had to ride out an indifferent opening period.

“We were a little bit shaky in the first 10 minutes. Losing Tom Cleverley in the warm-up has an effect and then the game started with them having a chance in 45 seconds,” said Bilic.

“You’re playing against a team that has won 10 games in a row and that start leaves you a little bit shaken.

“But after that 10 minutes we came back, we showed that we can press and we were very brave in keeping the ball. We switched sides, we played good football and we were trying to attack with numbers.

“I didn’t see Burnley creating many chances to be fair. Even after that first chance.

“We knew they like to be open at the back, and not just the defenders but also the goalkeeper, and they like to be very brave. But if you press then you are going to have your chances.

“We had good pressing and from one of them we scored, but we also took the ball off them in dangerous areas a few other times.

“To be fair, I expected us to score more than one.”

Cleverley was set to start and captain the team, but visibly hurt himself during the pre-game warm-up and was replaced by Ken Sema before kick-off.

“Tom felt his thigh pop in the warm-up,” explained Bilic.

“When you hear a pop that it is never a good sign. We’ll assess it tomorrow but it doesn’t look good.

“It’s not like a cramp. He felt a pop in his thigh. I would be happy if it was only a couple of weeks but I am expecting worse.

“It’s a shame as Tom is our captain and a real leader. He is a great professional who worked so hard to come back.

“After the minutes against Blackburn he was quite ready to play perhaps 60 minutes tonight.”

Towards the end of the game, Bilic decided to take off Pedro and replace him with Christian Kabasele.

“Pedro is a real player, but unfortunately right now he can’t play 90 minutes. That is the problem,” said Bilic.

The pre-game departure of Cleverley meant Sema was thrust into the fray much earlier than planned, but he gave a typically robust performance and got the assist for the goal.

“Ken is an honest player and he can play a lot of different positions. I told him that he might have to be ready to play at left back, maybe as a winger or maybe as a midfielder.

“But that was before Tom was injured, and we were talking about him coming on in the second half.

“Then it turned out we needed him as one of the midfield three from the start. Ken was going to play 45 minutes ideally, but we needed him to do more.”