Quique Sanchez Flores agreed with Manuel Pellegrini’s assessment that Watford defended well in the first half but felt the timing of Manchester City’s opener was crucial following the 2-0 defeat.

The Hornets kept City at bay during a goalless opening period but Pellegrini switched Raheem Stirling into a more central role at the start of the second half and within two minutes it had paid off as the England international converted Bacary Sagna’s cross top open the scoring before Fernandinho doubled his side’s tally.

The Watford head coach reflected: “I think we played well in the first half in defensive terms but it was difficult to resist City for the full match. We have a lot of problems in the first half with transition.

“In the second half, it’s so early the goal. So you have time to react to what happened if we resist maybe ten minutes more but it was very difficult to play against this kind of opponent. They have a lot of velocity in their transition, they have a lot of quality in the pass, physically they’re amazing. But for the future we want to learn from this kind of experience.”

Asked if he felt it was possible to prevent City from breaking through for the full 90 minutes, Flores replied: “It’s difficult to play against a team in these conditions. They change in the second half really quickly, they went for two strikers – Sterling with Aguero in the middle – they open the pitch with Nasri and Silva, it’s difficult for us. I think we coped very well with the movement of Silva in the first half, it was very, very important for City but in the second half I don’t think we had enough time to know what happened. This is the key. Scoring in two or three minutes is difficult and we had to change the shape, the system. It was completely different after we concede the goal.”

This was Watford’s fourth consecutive game without scoring in all competitions, but the Hornets head coach remains not unduly concerned by this.

“It’s difficult to score. For the teams that got promotion, a goal is very expensive,” he smiled. “We need to be clinical with our chances. We didn’t have a lot of chances today, maybe a couple of chances with Anya shooting in the second half but we didn’t have a lot of clear chances. But I am not too worried with this situation. We have to be positive, to work, to try and see goals are spread more equally and not focus on Deeney and Ighalo and these kind of players.”