Watford 3 Huddersfield Town 0: Today was not good enough, blasts Wagner

The Terriers crashed to a seventh defeat of the season courtesy of first half strikes from Roberto Pereyra and Gerard Deulofeu, the visitors’ misery then capped by a late goal for Isaac Success.

Both, from a Watford perspective, were hugely impressive solo efforts. For those of a Terriers persuasion, however, they were eminently preventable with countless opportunities to block either player by those in blue and white not taken en route to Jonas Lossl being beaten.

Town - who slipped to the bottom courtesy of Newcastle United’s draw at Southampton - had no luck at the other end thanks to Foster. Even so, they could have few complaints at losing after putting in such a shambolic defensive performance.

The tenth minute opener came when Pereyra collected the ball wide on Town’s right flank. He then skipped inside Erik Durm’s challenge before gliding past Mathias Jorgensen, Chris Lowe, Philip Billing and Durm again before firing beyond Jonas Lossl.

Having seen his team-mate make such light work of the visitors defence, Gerard Deulofeu clearly fanched his chances of doing the same on the opposite flank.

He darted past Chris Lowe’s slide tackle and then brushed aside Jonathan Hogg before firing beyond Lossl from a tight angle.

Town had started brightly before the opening goal and twice gone close. First, Aaron Mooy brought an impressive save from Ben Foster with a 20-yard drilled shot that was heading for the bottom corner until turned away.

Then, Alex Pritchard scooped a shot over from 15 yards after being picked out by Isaac Mbenza.

After falling two goals behind, Chris Lowe went agonisingly close as his 25-yard effort was touched on to the crossbar by Foster.

Philip Billing then brought another fine save from Foster just before the break.

Chances continued to flow at either end after the restart as Lossl saved brilliantly from Will Hughes and Mbenza was denied by Foster.

But there was to be no way back for Huddersfield, who have now gone 14 Premier League games - ten of which have been this season - without a win with the final blow coming when Success tapped in from a free-kick.

Terriers boss David Wagner lamented his side’s inept defending - but insisted his men can still avoid the Premier League drop.

“First of all we have to be honest with ourselves and say today was not good enough,” he said.

“We conceded two goals which are easy to defend if we’re more aggressive and take more responsibility for these challenges.

“We didn’t deserve anything out of this game because defensively we weren’t good enough.

“I will not judge my players on one performance and one game, but I have to be honest - defensively this was not our level.

“If everyone thinks the other guy will do it, this just does not help.

“But what we’ve shown in recent weeks gave me all the confidence which I need. Of course I’m confident because we’ve already played 10 games, a lot of them on a high level, just without collecting the right points.

“The place where the sun shines is only two points away and there’s another 28 games to go.

“We have everything still in our hands, but we have to perform better.”