Slaven Bilic admitted that while he didn’t say as much to his players, he knew that only leading 1-0 at the end of a first half where his side created all the chances left the door open for West Brom to fight back.

The Watford boss had said in the lead-up to the game that his team needed to turn good starts into goals, having fallen behind against both Rotherham and Blackburn in the last two matches at Vicarage Road.

This time they got their noses in front, but then failed to drive that advantage home against a West Brom team that looked distinctly average until the interval

“You can’t be negative at half time, there’s no reason to,” said Bilic.

“But I did tell the guys there’s no way West Brom can play like that in the second half, and maybe they were having a bit of a bad day.

“But knowing many of their players and also their manager, it’s not just because they are sloppy it’s because of us and what we are doing.

“You don’t want to be afraid they are going to do something, but you want to be ready while continuing to play on the front foot.

“But deep down inside I was also aware that 1-0 was not enough from what we showed in the first half.

“When we were 1-0 up it was absolutely more likely that we were going to score a second, and not for them to equalise.

“We started the game really well. They tried to press us, but we were getting out of that and then they stopped it a little bit. Because of that we were finding so many spaces in the first half, through the middle but also wide and especially on our left.

“The only thing that wasn’t good in the first half was the result. We should have been at least 2-0 up.

“In the second half they changed their shape, and had an extra man in midfield. We adjusted to that by also going to three in midfield.

“From our point of view we conceded two sloppy goals but we showed great determination and character, and the qualities required, to come back.

“We didn’t stop, we didn’t think about it, we continued to play and we deserved to win the game.”

After a series of draws, Watford had fallen out of the top six and knew they had to take three points from last night’s game in order to get back there.

“We were winning at Reading and ended up drawing 2-2. We should have won the game with Blackburn. At Burnley we conceded in the last seconds,” admitted Bilic.

“Those three draws feel a bit more positive when you have had a good win like this.

“We really needed this win. I’ve told the guys we have 13 games to go, not 31. It’s pretty much only one game per week so it is totally down to us to keep the levels of preparation, determination, intensity going.

“If we do that, and that is completely down to us, then we have a good chance in every game whoever we play against.”