Leicester boss Claudio Ranieri felt his Foxes side deserved more from their narrow defeat by Watford at Vicarage Road.

The visitors fell two goals behind inside 12 minutes and it looked like the flood gates may open for the Hornets, against a side who had shipped 14 goals in their five away games so far.

But after a clumsy challenge from Miguel Britos gave them a way back into the match from the penalty spot, Leicester huffed and puffed as they looked for an equaliser; and enjoyed the majority of possession on the road for the first time this campaign.

Roberto Pereyra's second-half header was as close as either side came to changing the scoreline after the blistering start, as Ranieri admitted Heurelho Gomes was left without a save to make.

He said: "Watford scored two fantastic goals and have very good-quality players.

"I think our reaction was fantastic and we got into the match and tried to do our best until the end but Gomes didn’t have any saves to make.

"By the end we deserved to draw, but we gave them some good chances too.

"I think until the end we had a chance to score because the team was alive. There was a big wall to stop all our shots at goal, but I’m very pleased with our performance."

The champions have now lost twice as many games as they did in the whole of their title-winning season, but Ranieri maintained his players' confidence remained high.

He said: "The spirit of the team is fantastic and I’m proud of them. Of course, we lost the match but the spirit is still high.

"There is no problem with away matches, but there’s a problem when we concede. When you concede a goal after 35 seconds some teams will go down but we reacted and tired to do our best.

"If you analyse the two goals, they were fantastic. If you don’t have confidence you don’t try to react, but we did that well.

"It’s just a bad period now and last season is done, it’s 2016/17 and we have to react and keep going; but stay stronger and concentrate from the beginning of the match every time."