Three consecutive home defeats, seven league games at Vicarage Road without a win, six goals scored and 13 conceded.

Watford are in the midst of a dreadful run in front of their own fans, who made it clear what they thought both at half-time and full-time of today’s 2-1 home loss to Huddersfield.

That the Terriers had won only once in their previous 13 away Championships games and they managed to come from behind to win this afternoon only made a truly grim defeat even more painful.

Valerien Ismael, as always, spoke to the media after the game, and because a number of key topics were discussed we will be printing the questions and answers – verbatim – in a series of stories.

First of all, these were Ismael’s overall thoughts on the game:

“I think at the start of the game it was for sure not the game plan and what we expected.

“Too slow, nobody wanted to take responsibility and we – the staff - were surprised.

“After 20 minutes the feeling was we have to do something to have an impact.

“I picked two players but it actually could have been changing all of the 11 players.

“Nonetheless, it was still 0-0 with a bad performance.

“So we spoke clearly at half-time about what we had to change and I think the second half, in a difficult game when you take the lead, normally it has to be a breather and a relief for everyone.

“But after that we still had the chance to score a second one, but how we conceded the goal it was too easy. Poor defending.

“We gave away a throw-in from nothing, not concentrating.

“And at the end you look around you and you say ‘ok we lose the game again at home’ – 21 points now and we took only two points.

“It’s a difficult situation to understand why it is like that.

“Today the performance was not there. This is what we have to analyse, and especially the players, because as a manager I am uncomfortable with the performance and the result.

“But each player is responsible for his own performance, how he is playing on the pitch.

“Today they need to go deep inside themselves to see in the mirror, and to give an answer to themselves first why they are not performing as a team.”