Quique Sanchez Flores admitted Watford’s performance was not good enough in their 2-0 defeat to Wolverhampton Wanderers, but has insisted the Hornets are working hard to improve their fortunes.

Matt Doherty’s first-half finish and a Daryl Janmaat own goal after the break saw the hosts pick up their first Premier League win of the season to leave the Hornets stuck at the basement and still without a first three points at the seventh attempt.

The Hornets head coach said: “We knew today would be a different match [to the defeat at Manchester City] and it would be tough. It’s not enough, it’s clear the performance should be better.

“Now we are looking for some kind of style, some way we’re going to play, but at the moment we’re not playing in that way. We concede very easy goals and these destroy all the plans. We are playing [catch-up] behind the score so it’s difficult for the players right now.”

Asked what it would take to turn the corner, Sanchez Flores responded: “Winning. We need to win. We need to train hard, we need to improve, we’re stronger on the training ground every single day but in the matches we still have problems, we have insecurities, we have situations we can’t solve, easy mistakes giving opportunities to the opponent.

“All these kind of things happen when things are a little bit down, but we are working on the situation, we’re working to change. I trust this squad of players and they can change the situation. Little by little, but when you are set this kind of challenge, you need to accept that in this situation, all these kind of things like own goals and other insecurities, they are around us.”

The Spaniard gave full league debuts to Danny Welbeck and Ismaila Sarr in a side that had no shortage of attacking potential. But those qualities rarely came to the fore in a performance that saw the visitors have plenty of the ball, but not use it progressively enough to put Wolves’ organised defence under too much pressure.

Asked why this was the case, Sanchez Flores said: “It’s difficult to know. In this kind of situation sometimes the players are confused. Sometimes they’ll understand very well the orders; in the second half for example the plan was for the striker to get down the sides because they are more faster than the central defender, but they didn’t understand it in the first half. Maybe after the first goal they forget or they are not completely clear?

“You win, it’s completely different and you can understand everything very quick. Now we know that everything will be slow, slow and we need to patient with the players, we need to help them, we need to support them.

“Things happen in this kind of situation. We had 60 per cent possession but this is not the team we are looking for. I prefer to say less possession, but more stronger, more compact, more pressure. We can’t even use the space to counter-attack because we are not a compact team, we are not recuperating, but this is a process and I hope between all of us we can find solutions.”