When the transfer window shut on Friday night, it did so without any further players being added to the Watford squad.

Head coach Valerien Ismael had said he was looking at other areas after signing his new No.9, Mileta Rajovic, and with no left-footed central defensive cover for Wesley Hoedt that looked the most likely area.

The Dutch defender then scored the own goal at Coventry, and after the game Ismael was quizzed on whether he needed to now look at the free agent market in order to give himself more options and cover in defence.

“It’s not because one player made one mistake. I was content with the defence side as we have not been conceding many chances,” he said.

“So I don’t want to throw away everything we have worked on with our centre backs.

“Wes has my trust, I know what he is capable of.

“We’ll assess the situation. If something happens then you have to react, but taking a free agent is always a risk because they haven’t played or trained with the team.

“You need time to build them up so taking the risk to bring a player like that in to try and avoid making mistakes, I’m not sure that he won’t make mistakes.

“The way we want to play comes with a lot of risk. I want bravery from my players, I accept there will be an amount of mistakes but today was just too many.”

Ismael revealed that the move which led to Watford’s second goal, which saw Matheus Martins break away down the right before cutting inside and curling a sublime finished inside the far post, was something that came straight out of their analysis of how the Sky Blues like to play at home.

“In our game plan we knew that, in transition, Coventry play with very high wing backs and so the space between the centre halves and the wing backs is really big,” he said.

“We knew that as soon as we get the ball we had to break into those areas. We did that a lot but we didn’t get the rewards.

“The one from Martins was perfect, but I think Asprilla got a lot of situations in the second half.

“It depends on the game plan. It depends on what the opponent gives us and today that was one of the solutions in our game plan in transition.”