Although he gave a lung-busting performance that was tiring just to watch, midfielder Hamza Choudhury said he and his Watford teammates felt comfortable for large spells of Tuesday’s game at Burnley.

However, he was also happy to admit that the team need to show that level of work rate and display the same attitude in every game, and not just when playing the league leaders,

“In large periods I felt comfortable and I’m sure the lads behind us felt comfortable because they weren’t causing us problems,” he said.

“On the counter-attack, when we have our front three playing and the lads that came off the bench – it would cause anyone problems.

“I feel like on a different day with a bit more quality in the final third, we could score two or three and then maybe the game is finished.

“It’s lessons learnt and now we have showed that the team can pull together and fight well. There is no excuse, and we have to be at that level every week and bring the quality with it.”

The on-loan Leicester City midfielder also echoed his head coach in being bitterly disappointed that the home side pegged the Hornets back so late in the game.

“It’s disappointing because the lads have worked their hearts out for the team and I felt like we had the game under control and they weren’t really creating too many chances,” he said.

“It was a tough game with a lot of running, there wasn’t so much space and they move it well.

“We know Burnley are one for late goals and we lost concentration and it wasn’t good enough from us in the last minute.

“Apart from that I thought we showed great fight, great grit – something which maybe we have lacked in the first half of the season. There are definitely positives there.”

With 42 more points available and Watford hanging onto a play-off place by the skin of their teeth, Choudhury knows the players have to take the plus points from Tuesday and then build on them during the run-in.

“Every game from now until the end of the season is massive and we have 14 huge matches left now,” he said.

“We want to win as many games as we can and I think some of the positives are that we showed great fight and we have come away from home and battled well with a team that have won 10 on the bounce.

“You have to look at it from every angle. I’m sure when we regroup, watch the video and after a week of training the lads will be confident that we can go on and do really good things this season.”