Roy Hodgson claims Watford have "no reason" to be confident that they can secure Premier League survival, following a day in which they were beaten 3-0 by Leeds United and relegation rivals Everton extended the gap at the bottom to six points with a win of their own.

The Hornets' manager was asked if he had confidence that his players could drag themselves away from their increasingly-bleak situation in the relegation zone, but the ex-England boss explained that, for teams at the bottom, confidence was difficult to find.

"I've never used the word confident, I don't want to set myself up for headlines or statements which I can't identify with," said Hodgson, "We have no reason to be confident. We do have reason to believe, we do have reason to have faith. We do have reason to think that we aren't that bad and that results are still a distinct possibility for us. And we'll keep doing that, that's for sure.

"I don't think anyone at Norwich or Burnley will be saying it, I don't even think Everton will be saying 'we are confident'. But of course what Everton have got today and what Leeds have now got in the last four games, they've got results and they've given themselves a very very strong margin, which makes their position so much better than ours.

"How do you get confidence? Confidence comes from winning football matches and we don't win matches. So how do you get there? There's no words that are going to change that. There's not even training sessions that are necessarily going to change that. All a training session is going to do is help to prepare the team to play as you'd like to see the team play.

"But if you want confidence you've got to win. And at the moment it would be almost crazy to say that the confidence in teams like ourselves Norwich and Burnley is sky high because we're not winning."

Hodgson said that the mood among the Watford players following the loss was not that bad, but said he could understand the fans' frustration, after the club equalled their worst ever run of home defeats, a record that has stood since the 1971/72 season.

However, he felt that his team showed both effort and desire in the match.

"I don't know that the mood amongst the players is that bad, but of course the mood amongst the fans I guess is pretty bad because they keep coming here expecting to see their team win and it doesn't win," he said. "But the mood amongst the players in actuality isn't as bad as all that and I've got to say, I think any fair-minded person who watched the game today wouldn't put our defeat down to any lack of belief or effort or desire or or feeling we can do this.

"What we put it down to is the fact that they score with their only strike in the first half and then they kill the game after we've had an excellent chance to equalise with an unfortunate mix up in our defence, which puts the game to bed with 2-0."