Craig Cathcart has described Watford's home defeat to Brighton and Hove Albion on Saturday as a wake up call after the Hornets were comfortably beaten 3-0 by the Seagulls in their Premier League opener, despite winning the same fixture 2-0 last year.

The Northern Irish defender said Watford had no excuses and that they need to be better-prepared for the trip to Everton this weekend.

"We've got no excuses and we need to do better," he said.

"I'm sure we'll look at the game and look at videos during the week and try to see what we did wrong and try to rectify it as quickly as possible.

"We can't dwell on it too much, we have to move on and we've got a tough game next week and we'll try to learn as much as we can.

"Regardless of who it is, there's no easy games in this league, I think today showed that.

"Last year against Brighton we won comfortably and it's completely changed this year. It's a bit of a wake up call for us, we need to be 100 per cent every game to get good results from the matches, so hopefully that'll spring us into step."

Cathcart and his new defensive partner Craig Dawson struggled to deal with Brighton attacking threat throughout the game, but the defender insists his new partnership is one that can work in the Premier League.

The 30-year-old also said the Hornets were not suffering a hangover from the end of last season, where a dip in form saw them slip out of the top half of the table.

"Since he's been here, it's been pretty seamless. Craig's a great lad, he's very professional, he's come in and he seems to be fitting into the group really well.

"Today's obviously disappointing for both of us. As a defender you want to try and keep a clean sheet. It's one of those days, they were clinical and took their chances. On another day it might have been different.

"He's a very experienced player, I'm sure he's been through it all before. No matter how the game went today, he's been in the game long enough to know every result matters and you have to move on.

"I don't think there's a hangover from last season. In pre-season we got the results, we've worked really hard over the five weeks we've been back and it's just one of those days where everything was against us - there was the own goal, they were clinical with their finishing. Perhaps we were a little bit unlucky at times as well.

"It's a long season. We can't dwell on one performance, one result too much, we have to move on. There's plenty of games to come and every game's difficult, we just have to make sure we're 100 per cent ready and everyone's at their best."

One positive for Watford is the arrival of attacking reinforcements in the shape of Danny Welbeck and Ismaila Sarr, who both joined the club on the final two days of the summer transfer window.

Cathcart believes that they can improve the overall quality of the squad, by challenging for places.

"They bring in great competition for the team, possibly that's what we need," he said.

"I think we need to push each other in training, that's only going to add quality to the team, I think."