Walter Mazzarri was pleased Watford were able to build on their victory at Arsenal with another three points following their 2-1 triumph over Burnley, but he admitted their failure to kill off the game could have come back to bite them.

The Hornets were on course for a potentially comfortable three points after goals from Troy Deeney and M’Baye Niang had put them 2-0 against a Clarets side who had seen Jeff Hendrick sent off after six minutes.

Mazzarri’s men though, were unable to build on their advantage after the break and an Ashley Barnes penalty, awarded for handball against Sebastian Prodl, set up a conclusion to the match that was more edgy for the home side than it perhaps should have been.

“I’m very happy of course because we won,” said the Hornets boss. “I’m happy with how we played in the first half but I’m not happy at all about the second.

“This is why when I say we have to grow as a team, grow as a mentality, it’s because the big teams manage to close the game as we should have done. We should have scored three or four goals and we didn’t do it. And we risked losing the three points for immature mistakes as I like to call them that could have changed the end of the game.

“The only excuse that I can find is that we played a few days ago a very important game at Arsenal and we spent a lot in terms of condition. And we also have many players coming back from injury so we are still trying to find the perfect condition, but we should have scored the third goal. We had many clear chances.”

The victory moved the Hornets up to tenth in the Premier League, ten points clear of the relegation zone, and saw them complete back-to-back league wins for only the second time this season.

Mazzarri said: “Before this game I told my players that now the transfer market is finished, you are the team that is going to be until the end of the season and you always have to go with the same spirit that we did against Arsenal. All of the games we have to go the same way on the pitch and think about it game by game and do the best we can until the end [of the season]”