Head coach Valerien Ismael agreed that having loads of possession is of no use if that doesn’t lead to shots, and then to goals.

The Hornets dominated the 90 minutes at Huddersfield but rarely did they look like making the scoreboard change as their end product was almost non-existent.

They had 71% possession in a 0-0 draw, but managed only nine goal attempts. Just three of those required saving, and none of them extended the home keeper.

“This is what we say to the players – show the confidence. We have the quality, take the risk,” said Ismael.

Huddersfield 0 Watford 0 - match report

“We kept playing square balls. I am ok with that, but at some point we have to do something. We have to shoot.

“A couple of shots in the first half, one or two in the second half – it’s not enough.

“When you dominate a game like that you have to give the opponent the feeling we could score at any time.”

Asked if the Hornets had focussed so much on possession they sacrificed opportunities to get forward and try to win the game, Ismael said: “When you are under control you don’t want to give the opponent any chance to counter. You need to patient.

“We started the second half strongly, the pressure was there and we suffocated Huddersfield. But we didn’t have that big chance to score.”

It was undoubtedly a golden chance to take three points against a team suffering with injuries and low morale.

“It’s nice to see us being disappointed when we aren’t winning away. It shows our improvement over a few weeks,” said the Watford boss.

“The game was difficult because the game plan of our opponents made it tough. They have a lot of injured players, they have conceded eight goals in two games so their first task is to defend.

“We were completely in control. We won the duels, we didn’t concede corners and we defended set pieces much better.

“But our problem today was our work in the last third. We needed more shots, more crosses into the box, more belief in one v one situations.

“We needed to take more risks. There were too many square balls. We played square ball after square ball.

“It was another clean sheet and five games unbeaten, so there were positives to be taken. We want more though, and we are disappointed, so that shows we are moving in the right direction.”