Last season, Watford couldn’t buy a win at Vicarage Road.

This season, it’s earning points on their travels that is causing problems - they have now lost four on the spin away from home.

They also haven’t kept a clean sheet in seven league and cup away games – ironically their last one came in a 0-0 draw against an Ipswich side that was on its way to the Premier League.

“There’s only 23 games at home and they only make up half the story,” admitted Tom Cleverley.

“We need to take ourselves to the next level away from home and we’ve not managed to do that yet.

“I’m disappointed because at Bramall Lane and Carrow Road we’ve failed in that test, and I really thought tonight was the evening where we'd make a sort of statement and say to the rest of the league that we’re here and we want to be challenging at the business end.

“But we’ve failed in that respect and I’m disappointed.”

Although the second half was markedly worse than the first 45 minutes, Cleverley wasn’t content with either.

“I’m just as disappointed with the first half as I was with the second because we played within ourselves,” he pointed out.

“We played like a mid-table team, we were happy to be here and didn’t want to go above and beyond to assert ourselves.

“It’s my challenge, and a challenge for all the players, because that is not what we’re working towards.”

In the second half there were often large gaps in and around the Watford, and Preston enjoyed the freedom of the penalty area for their second and third goals.

“That’s a challenge,” said Cleverley.

“Morris is a left-back by trade and we’re asking him to play centre half, Pollock was our only recognised centre-half at the end and we’ve been stretched in that area.

“When Ogbonna came off it was always going to be a challenge, but I want 4-3-3 as a back-up option and we’re going to have to defend our box far better than that.

“We played it at Southampton last season and conceded from crosses into the box.

“So it is something we need to work at and improve upon because we don’t want to become predictable when we need a Plan B.”