When you score three goals against a team in the Premier League, you expect to be winning the game.

However, Watford got exactly what they deserved against Southampton at Vicarage Road on Southampton and I don’t think anyone can argue with that.

In fact, the Saints probably could and should, have scored more but Heurelho Gomes pulled off some superb saves over the course of the match.

Yes, the Brazilian made an unfortunate error for Southampton’s third goal, but he has saved us on many occasions since arriving in 2014, so he shouldn’t be heavily criticised in my opinion, as Gomes has proved himself to be one of the Hornets’ consistent performers during his time at the club.

But going back to Saturday’s game, the Hornets were poor for large parts and were beaten by a superior Southampton side.

So, I was surprised to hear Walter Mazzarri say that Watford deserved a draw in his post-match analysis. I’m sorry Walter but we didn’t.

He needs to accept we weren’t good enough and needs to put a stop to the problems which reared their head again.

Defensively we made so many mistakes once again and we couldn’t live with the Saint’s front three of Dusan Tadic, Nathan Redmond and Manolo Gabbiadini.

Southampton were afforded too much time and space, especially in the middle of the park, meaning they could cut through our defence and midfield with ease.  

Just look at Southampton’s third and fourth goal. For the Saint’s third, no one closed-down Sofiane Boufal, giving him too much time and space to get a shot off, and for their fourth, Sebastian Prodl failed to close down Redmond, meaning the England Under 21 could drive into our box and pick his spot.

I could pick out more defensive errors, but there’s too many to choose from. But, once again, this is hardly a new problem and I feel like a broken record picking out defensive problems once again.

However, this has been a problem for us all season and you’d think nearly three quarters of the way through the season that we’d be seeing some sort of improvement.

In recent weeks, yes, we have looked better defensively, but in each game you sense that it’s only a matter of time before we make a mistake at the back. Defensive signings must be a priority in the summer in my opinion.

Offensively, Watford were equally as poor and that might sound strange considering we scored three goals.

But for large parts, all we did was play long aimless balls up to Troy Deeney and Stefano Okaka which was easy for Southampton to defend against for large parts.

We’re better than that and have showcased we can cause teams problems when we get the ball down and play.

However, in recent weeks, when Watford attack everything seems to be off the cuff. What I mean is there seems to be no plan or strategy when we attack. We have little or no conviction going forward.

Playing long balls up to Deeney and Okaka isn’t the answer and never will be.

We did look better when Isaac Success came on, but we can’t pin our hopes on such a young player, whose largely been restricted to cameo appearances from the substitutes bench for seemingly a variety of reasons.

We need to develop our own style and way of playing because it looks like we don’t know what we are doing during games at times.

Either way you look at it, there are plenty of things that Walter Mazzarri needs to be working on in the two week break we’ve got until we play Crystal Palace.

That game against Palace becomes even more important now in my opinion. A game we must not lose, otherwise it’s possible we might be starting to look over our shoulders once again.

Bradley Hayden is the founder and sole-writer of @WatfordFCBlog