Not even Barcelona could have broken through the tight spaces attempted by Watford at the weekend. That was the opinion of the Hornets' head coach Gianfranco Zola after Saturday's 1-0 defeat to Bolton Wanderers.

Bolton were happy to invite the Golden Boys' pressure as their back four camped on the edge of the penalty area and the two holding midfielders provided additional protection.

There was some good interchange between a few of the attacking players but the home team only managed one shot on target during the 90 minutes.

And Zola said: "They were trying to go through [the Bolton defence] with small passes and combinations but there was no space. Not even Barcelona could go through those small areas - and we are not Barcelona I can assure you."

He added: "The disappointing thing for me was that we worked all week on how we didn’t want to go in the middle because we knew there would be too many players in the middle and we wanted them to go into the wide areas. So that really was the upsetting thing for me.

"In the second half, there was some good play but they went where there were too many bodies in there.

"Part of that is also down to the type of players I have and the players I had on the pitch. They want the ball in the middle and at their feet but it was very difficult.

"We will talk about that in the week."

Watford striker Troy Deeney was one of ten players absent on Saturday and Zola was asked if he was missed.

"When Deeney performs at his best then of course he is a player we miss but I don’t think so today," Zola replied "We had the possibility to cause them problems and we didn’t because we made mistakes. Too many players - Fernando Forestieri, Diego Fabbrini, Josh McEachran and Cristian Battocchio – kept going into the middle and crowding the place.

"It would have been a problem for Troy as well because the area was too crowded by our own players."

Listen to a large part of Zola's press conference below.

listen to ‘WatfordObserverSport talk about Zola on Bolton defeat’ on Audioboom