Lack of composure in possession meant Watford didn’t kill today's FA Cup tie with Southampton when they had the chance, and that came back to bite them at the end.

Although Saints had greater possession over the 90 minutes, Watford were more threatening in the first half and carved out nine goal attempts to the visitors’ two.

However, there were times throughout the first hour when the Hornets had the ball but it led to nothing or, worse still, they gave it away.

“Over the 90 minutes I felt our mentality was great, and the desire was there,” said Valerien Ismael.

“The only thing I have to say that we need now for our own improvement is to learn to become more composed on the ball.

“Against a team like Southampton they are possession-based and you have to accept that, but we knew that in transition we would have a lot of possibilities.

“Too many times we lost the ball too easily and we gave the ball away, and that cost us a lot of energy in getting the ball back.

“At the end you can see that we had made too many unnecessary runs, we had lost the ball too many times and not been composed. We were hectic.

“I think, though, this is the normal way if you want to become a top team. You have to control the ball more.

“When we have our moment on the ball, we need to be longer with the ball. We have to make sure we force the opponent to defend more.

“That was the only thing that we didn’t do well today.”

Although energy used up chasing back when they lost possession goes some way to explaining why Watford looked drained in the closing stages, it wasn’t the only reason.

“For sure at the end we needed to put on players who are not fit at the moment, and you can see the intensity drops straight away,” said the Watford head coach.

“But at some point you have to let them play because they need to get minutes.

“I thought both teams gave everything to win, but in the second half we lost too many balls and we defended too much.

“It was wave after wave, and in transition we lost a little bit of energy to go through and force them to defend.

“At the end it’s almost inevitable that if you are defending wave after wave then you can get punished.”

Ismael has said before, most recently at after last week’s draw at Bristol City, that Watford need to be more ruthless and calm when they get into the final third.

“It’s the decision making. We start the build-up well but then we lose the ball," he said after the Southampton game.

“We didn’t force them often enough to drop which creates big distances between our goal and Southampton’s.

“We were defending too much, and you cannot afford to do that.

“When you stay on the ball you need to keep your composure and try to switch play to force the opponent to move.

“We did it sometimes and we did it well, but sometimes we tried to do it too quickly.

“I see that as the next step as we improve as a team, making sure you can give yourselves a better chance to compete your opponent.”