Watford manager Sean Dyche accepted his side’s performance was not good enough during the 2-1 defeat to Reading and stated his side could not afford to “carry” three or four below-par players.

The Hornets took the lead half an hour into the contest through an own goal but Reading pulled level just before the break.

Adam Le Fondre came off the bench to score with his first touch five minutes before the end and inflict Watford’s first home defeat since October 15.

Watford struggled to keep possession against Reading and had almost no creative spark – producing just three shots on target during the 90 minutes.

Dyche admitted: “We didn’t deserve to get more out of the game based on the performance. We may have done in terms of the two goals being very soft goals but our performance level was not good enough this evening.

“We have performed very well of late and there were too many individual performances that were not quite right this evening.

“You can carry one or two players but when it gets to three or four then that affects the team and the team looked disjointed.

“Second half was a bit more even but first half they had the better of it so eventually you get caught out if the performance levels are not high enough.”

Watford have been tough to break down for much of this season but Dyche accepted both goals should have been avoided this evening.

He was unsure why his side had performed so poorly and claimed he had been impressed by his squad in the build up to the match.

“Sometimes this happens,” Dyche said, “The lads have been absolutely terrific in training this week and we mentioned before the game that they should play how we trained.

“The level the lads set themselves in training is excellent and this week they were particularly sharp so we came into it really confident and it is a scratch-your-head moment when you look at the players and think what did change in the performance this evening?

“The players are on a valuable learning curve and some of the players are learning from the ups and downs of it.

“We have been on a nice run in general, particularly at home, so we are not too despondent overall but we are disappointed with our performance tonight.”

Watford had previously enjoyed an excellent recent record during televised games but they have lost all three matches when on TV this season.

Dyche does not believe that is a factor though.

“Who knows, you can never guarantee that,” Dyche said, “Does it affect the players? it is up to them to decide. If you could find the secret of that then you would know how to address it.

“Players have to perform. Some of our players are used to that and have played on TV before so I don’t think that is a particular factor.

“Everyone saw we lost to Middlesbrough because of a lineman’s decision so that defeat wasn’t because of our performance, it was a decision out of our hands.

“It is probably just one of those things.”