Three games to go and Watford Women will probably need to win all of them to have a chance of avoiding relegation from the Championship.

It sounds a tall order for a team that has only won three so far this season in total, but their performance against league leaders Sunderland in the 3-0 defeat at Vicarage Road on Sunday gave great hope they could achieve just that.

The Hornets dominated the first half and were still pushing at 1-0 down before being hit by two quick goals that killed the contest.

So, while three wins seems a big ask, it’s far from impossible.

“No, not at all, and we know that,” said acting head coach Matt Bevans.

“It’s now a case of us helping the players implement the information we give them and putting that onto the pitch.

“It’s also important we take the belief from a performance like this and go back to the training pitch, analyse the game and see where we can be better.

“We’ll give it a right go in the last three games, you can be sure of that.”

Bevans was dejected after the defeat at Vicarage Road, particularly because the wounds were self-inflicted.

“It was bitterly disappointing to be honest,” he said.

“The messages we delivered to the group in the week they executed for long periods, and we controlled the game for long periods.

“But ultimately we’ve made three mistakes and been punished.

“They were three really poor goals to concede.

“I always say if a team makes a 20-pass move to score against us then that’s fair enough.

“But what we conceded today were sloppy goals. That’s frustrating.”

In the first half, it was Watford who looked like the side chasing the league title, with Sunderland penned in their own half and thoroughly stretched by the Hornets.

“I think the first half was one of our best of the season in terms of the girls taking on board information and being really brave to play,” Bevans said.

“Our structure was really good, we just lacked that tiny bit in the final third and that cost us.

“If someone had watched the game today who didn’t know, they’d have struggled to tell which team was top of the league and which team was bottom.

“Until they scored in the second half we were in complete control.

“It’s really disappointing because we get punished for our bad moments – we need to start punishing other teams when they give us chances.”