Reading looked like a boxer clinging on, and yet Watford failed to deliver the knockout punch.

That was the analogy Slaven Bilic used to voice his frustration that Watford let a 2-0 lead slip in their 2-2 draw at Reading.

“The game was there for us,” he said.

“I told the boys at half time not to be happy with 1-0, because Reading were looking like a groggy boxer.

“Don’t wait for the 12th round, don’t win on points. Knock them out because their guard is down.

“A game is never buried at 2-0 but to be fair it should be enough. We had so many situations where we should have or could have scored the third goal, and it is game over.

“We made so many wrong decisions or we lost the ball in great positions. It’s unacceptable. It’s a big waste that we didn’t win.

“It definitely feels like a defeat. Instead of bagging three points with a good performance we only have one.

“We have to blame ourselves, we were winning 2-0. Sometimes you are 2-0 up and the game is even, or perhaps you are second best.

“But this wasn’t that type of game, it was totally opposite. They had only one chances before the penalty and that was a shot on the break from 20 yards.”

Bilic said he felt his players didn’t make enough use of the space that Reading afforded them, especially in the centre of the park.

“There was so much space in the midfield and yet we were very reluctant to turn and play forward,” he said.

“In every attack, without us having to take risks or play great balls, just through passing and making good angles, there was space for us.

“We didn’t travel with the ball enough. Kamara did it several times but overall we didn’t do it enough.

“There was always space for us today, until the game got to 2-1. Then we started to hit longer passes, and the ball spent a lot of time in the air.”

On the plus side, the full debuts of Henrique Araujo and Ryan Porteous saw a return of an assist and a goal.

“Both of them were very, very good,” said Bilic.

“With Araujo we have to save him a bit, and 70 minutes was enough for his first start.

“Porteous was very dominant, with and without the ball. He’s very composed, he looks for progressive passes and on top of that he scored the goal.

“There were a lot of positives in the way we performed, but at the end of the day we are playing for points and we should have got three.”