Despite another afternoon where they failed to turn possession into clear-cut chances, Marco Silva felt Watford deserved more from their 2-0 defeat at Leicester City today and re-iterated that Premier League survival is the club's goal this season.

The Hornets could not be faulted for their commitment, but Andre Gray produced the only clear-cut chance for the visitors in the second half.

By that point, Jamie Vardy had proved enough of a nuisance to win and score a penalty before the break, and a hard-working but worryingly limited performance had already been laid bare.

Silva said: "We can’t fault our attitude and commitment. We knew it would be a tough game, and it proved during the game - it was tough for both teams.

"The first half was balanced, we had one chance from a set-piece and so did they. There was nothing else, but in one moment they won the second ball and had the penalty. That made the difference.

"We didn’t start the second half like we wanted to, we created more problems with two strikers.

"We knew they would drop deeper when they were winning but are strong on the counter-attack, with Mahrez, Okazaki and Vardy, we had two clear chances to equalise with Andre and Troy, and at that moment everything is different. That would be fair for me.

"When they score the second goal, we lost the ball in midfield here we couldn’t afford to.

"Both teams lacked quality and it wasn’t a good game. We didn’t score in the key moments, they did and took their chances."

When questioned over his team's run of form, Silva re-iterated that their seasonal results had taken them to 10th in the Premier League.

And despite comments from Scott Duxbury at the end of last season which stated in no uncertain terms how the Hornets would not settle for merely staying up, that stance appears plainly at odds with Silva's post-match comments today.

He said: "It’s our goal to stay in the Premier League. Our fight is to stay in the Premier League, and that is a fight 10, maybe 12 other clubs also are in. We started the season very well, our form is not the best but we have to keep going.

"We are in a fight, we have been since the first game, to keep the club in the Premier League. When everyone was talking about how our expectations would change, and talking about European competitions, I said our goals hadn’t changed.

"That was never our goal. I know as a squad as well you have to keep going. Nothing has changed, and for me it’s clear."