Pearson: We Didn't Do Enough

Just as they had been against Crystal Palace seven days previously, the Foxes looked off-colour at Vicarage Road, as goals from Almen Abdi and Fernando Forestieri gave the Hornets three points.

David Nugent’s sixth goal of the season gave Pearson’s side hope in the final 20 minutes, but the dismissal of Zak Whitbread late-on for a second bookable offence left them with an uphill task.

“It’s disappointing that we’ve had two games in a row where we haven’t done enough ourselves,” Pearson said after the game.

“We underperformed again and had too many players that didn’t hit the levels we have so far this season. In this division, it’s difficult to carry players that aren’t performing particularly well.

“Give them (Watford) some credit, they played some good football, but we didn’t do enough to get the win we were looking for.”

Pearson felt his side were uncharacteristically disappointing with the ball against the Hornets, whose combination of strong defending and dangerous counter-attacking proved mightily effective on their own patch.

But the Foxes boss says his players will regroup for another tough away game on Tuesday night, when they will travel to Bolton Wanderers.

“We didn’t utilise our possession well enough. We made a lot of poor decisions and didn’t work hard enough when we had the ball,” Pearson said.

“We didn’t manage the ball in the fashion that I would expect us to. In the end we played some pretty direct football, which isn’t really our style, but it looked more likely to get us an outcome rather than playing through midfield and out wide.

“We’ll have to get things ready for Tuesday night and make sure the team is ready for that game.”