Gianfranco Zola felt Watford’s draw at Burnley this afternoon “was a very good point for us”.

The Hornets took the lead through Nathaniel Chalobah but were pegged back before half-time when Almen Abdi was penalised for a foul in the area and Charlie Austin converted the resultant penalty. Burnley had the better of the play thereafter but both sides had opportunities to win the game, with the visitors going closest through Troy Deeney and a Joel Ekstrand shot which hit the crossbar.

Asked whether he was pleased with a point, Zola responded: “There was moments when I wasn’t and others when I was so at the end of the day I think it’s a very good point for us because it’s not going to be an easy for anyone to get points here. Burnley are a tough team to play against.”

The Italian, who confirmed Chalobah was replaced at the break because of a dead leg, admitted he wasn’t “very pleased” with the decision for the penalty that was awarded after Abdi was adjudged to have fouled Dean Marney but added: “I need to see it again but it was unclear and some of the decisions were.”

Turning to his side’s performance, the head coach said: “We created chances, not as many as we normally do but, yes, the passing wasn’t fluent. It was two games in which we certainly didn’t play our best football [following last week’s 2-1 defeat at home to Hull City] and that needs to be addressed during the week but I’m not concerned. It is such a long Championship that you cannot pretend to play all the games with the pedal down and you need to accept that, so I’m not worried too much about that.”

There were a number of times when the visitors were forced into last-ditch challenges, with Tommie Hoban and Joel Ekstrand arguably the stand-out performers for the Hornets, and Zola remarked: “I know my defenders can defend well. Sometimes today they got in too many times in situations where we were one versus one at the back, something that we normally, with a defence of three, shouldn’t have. But we are not perfect, we know that. We need to keep working and improving what we need to improve.”