John Eustace believes Tommy Smith will bounce back from his penalty miss for Watford in yesterday’s 3-2 defeat against Wolves.

The wide man blazed his spot kick over the bar but Eustace, who was captain yesterday, thinks Smith’s confidence won’t be affected by the miss.

He said: “Tommy has been magnificent all season and got some vital goals and I am sure he will want to take the next one and knock that in. He is a top player and I am sure it won’t affect him too much.”

Watford came from behind twice in yesterday’s game and dominated for long spells before conceding a later winner.

Eustace added: “We are really disappointed that we lost the game, we certainly didn’t deserve to lose.

“I think we dominated for long periods and gave away three sloppy goals.

“We should take a lot of positives from the game, I think they are top of the league now (Wolves are actually second) and we were better than them in long periods, so we are going in the right direction but we are really disappointed to have lost the game.”

Aidy Boothroyd started with Lloyd Doyley at centre back and then moved Adrian Mariappa into the middle as he was unable to pick Darren Ward and Jay DeMerit.

But Eustace refused to blame just the back four for yesterday’s poor defensive display.

He concluded: “There are 11 players out there and we defend from the front, we haven’t defended well as a team today (Saturday) so it is something we need to look at as a whole team, not just the defenders.”