Gianfranco Zola believes Watford need to produce their best performance of the season if they are to reach Wembley after their defeat to Leicester City tonight.

The Hornets lost 1-0 at the King Power Stadium in the first leg of their Championship play-off semi-final.

Watford were over-run in the opening quarter of an hour but they settled and arguably created the clearer chances in the second half before David Nugent grabbed the winner late on.

Zola said: “I can’t really be too harsh on my players because they played a good game and they deserved more.

“Now we need to get ready and make sure we play our best game of the season because that is what is necessary to beat Leicester.”

He continued: “I am confident. We are a team that can score. We have goals in our bag and don’t forget we will have Troy Deeney back on Sunday who is certainly an important player for us.”

“This team deserves to go to Wembley,” he added. “We have to make sure that we put everything we have on the pitch on Sunday; in terms of technical and tactical abilities.

“We will also need a lot of character because this goal will give them confidence.

“They will want to defend and we really need to produce something extra on Sunday.”

Watford’s main strength this season has been their clinical finishing but that was not the case tonight, with Matej Vydra, Alex Geijo and Ikechi Anya all failing to take very good chances.

Zola admitted: “I think the main reason we came away without the result was our failure to be clinical.

“We have had opportunities in other games where we created less than today and we scored. Today it didn’t happen and it was very unfortunate because honestly I didn’t see Leicester scoring tonight and I thought we had control of the game.

“That is the reality and in the Championship teams can punish you with little opportunities and that was the case today.

“When you have good players like they have then it can happen.”

“Certainly being clinical has been one of our main qualities this season but unfortunately it wasn’t the case today,” he added.

Vydra has scored 20 goals this season but it has now been 12 games since his last league goal.

The Czech Republic international tested Kasper Schmeichel in the second half with a good left-footed strike, however, he completely mishit a glorious opportunity when through one-on-one and also scuffed another opportunity.

When asked if Vydra probably would have scored those chances a few months, Zola replied: “Yes, but this is not a moment where you need to cry when you are not scoring goals.

“Matej is important and I told him that before the match. He has been an important player for us not only because he scored 20 goals but also because his contribution to the team has been fantastic. Today was the same.

“He is not scoring but I have a lot of faith in him.

“As soon as he gets over it, he will score important goals for us.”

Leicester created a few very good chances in the first half but rarely troubled the Hornets in the second period.

And Zola claimed: “I don’t think anyone can say we deserved to lose. Although Leicester tried very hard and had some chances in the first half.

“But I think those chances were matched by our chances and honestly the defeat was a bit too hard on us. I think a draw would have been a fairer result.”

“I didn’t come here to lose [or draw], we came here to win the game,” Zola continued.

“We didn’t play as well as we did in other games but that is also down to them; they prepared well and it was hard to find opportunities.”

Click here to read tonight's match report.