Watford head coach Beppe Sannino believes the 1-1 draw at Bristol City in the FA Cup third round was a fair result but admitted the Hornets should have held on after taking the lead with only six minutes to play.  

Sean Murray looked to have scored the winner for the Golden Boys with his driven effort in the 84th minute but Jay Emmanuel-Thomas equalised for Bristol City almost immediately after to force a replay.

Sannino was pleased with his team's performance and said the only negative was that the Hornets were unable to see out the victory.

"I want to compliment my players - the main negative is we weren’t able to capitalise on the lead we had," the Italian said after his first FA Cup match.

"I think it was a fair result and we have to give credit to Bristol who played a good game - I think at the end 1-1 was a fair result."

He added: "It’s part of football - we weren’t able to take advantage of the lead but I have to compliment Bristol because they deserved to equalise."

The League One outfit were more than a match for the Hornets in an even contest at Ashton Gate.

When asked if he was expecting such a tough examination from lower-placed opposition, Sannino said: "I was aware that in a competition like the FA Cup, when you play a team one league below, it is never easy.

"Tonight it has been said to me that there have been some strange results with other teams so I was expecting it to be a tough game."

Watford were missing a number of players for the match including Fernando Forestieri, Ikechi Anya, Daniel Pudil and Davide Faraoni, while Marco Cassetti went off at half-time with a knock and Lewis McGugan was also struggling at the break.

Sannino said: "The main positive is even though we were struggling for numbers, we came here to be positive in the game. 

"Another thing is we were able to suffer in the game and we had to be patient.

"I know we can do better but there are a lot of games at the moment, it is a very tight schedule."

Read what Bristol City's manager Steve Cotterill thought of the 1-1 draw by clicking here.