The fact that Watford had worked specifically on defending the aerial threat Sheffield United pose from corners, free-kicks and throw-ins made the decisive goal at Bramall Lane even harder to take.

Midfielder Hamza Choudhury – who once again put in a colossal shift in midfield – said the Hornets had used their preparation time to work on how to combat the challenge the Blades pose.

“The goal was another set-piece, which we worked on during the week,” said Choudhury.

“We knew it was one of their strong points. Every time the ball goes out of play they look to get it into the box and they’re very good at it, but we dealt well with it up until that one and it’s unfortunate.

“We don’t want to blame luck or anything else apart from not defending it properly, but I think it’s gone in off Ryan, right in front of me and Daniel Bachmann, and it’s unfortunate.

“Then right at the end we’ve had a scramble in their box and it’s not quite fallen for us. We’re disappointed but we’ve got a big month coming up and hopefully we can take as many points as possible.”

Choudhury said the Hornets had enough possession to have delivered far more end product than they did.

“I think we had the better of long parts of the game, we had the ball in their final third and controlled it well, but we’ve not quite taken our chances or created enough clear-cut ones to win.

“It’s a tough place to come but the lads dealt with it well. We knew they were going to come out strong and we dealt with it.

“They maybe had one or two half-chances in the first half but we came in at half-time and we were happy.

“We knew we could do more and I thought we did that in the second half, but it’s disappointing again. We’ve got three games out of the next four at home and I feel like we need to take maximum points out of them.”

One of the main talking points of the first 45 minutes was Keith Stroud’s decision not to give Watford a penalty for a shove on Keinan Davis in the 10th minute.

“It was mentioned at half-time but none of us have seen it back,” he said.

“We don’t want to be looking back at refereeing decisions or how unlucky we were. We’ve got to dominate games and with the frontline we’ve got we should be creating and scoring more.

“You can’t fault the effort of the lads. I thought we dug deep at a tough place to come and in the last four or five games we’ve shown we’ve got the fight and desire, and if we can start showing that in the opposition’s box I’m sure we can start turning it around.

“Every game from now until the end of the season will be a big game. After beating West Brom we were on a high and we thought we could start building momentum, but it’s a big one next weekend and hopefully we can start from there.”