Watford head coach Walter Mazzarri insists his side made a great improvement on their opening game despite falling to a 2-1 defeat at home to Chelsea.

The Hornets were on course for an unexpected victory after Etienne Capoue's second goal of the season.

But efforts from Michy Batshuayi and Diego Costa in the last ten minutes turned the contest around.

Mazzarri said: “I’m very disappointed. At the moment what counts is we have grown as a team and improved a lot compared to last week [Southampton draw].

“We were unlucky especially because in the first half we could have scored at least a couple of goals but we didn’t. Now the important thing is I’m very happy with the way we played."

The Italian added: “I’m very happy on everything especially with how we played.

"We played much better than at Southampton last week. We played only 20 minutes last week and today we played for 70 minutes which is a great improvement."