Javi Gracia felt Watford produced a “good performance” and deserved to return home from Goodison Park with some reward, but admitted they paid the price for not capitalising on their opportunities.

A 10th-minute goal from Bernard ultimately proved enough for the Toffees to inflict a second successive defeat on their opponents at the start of the season. But the Hornets had opportunities to get back on terms, with Craig Dawson heading a corner against the crossbar while Troy Deeney was denied by Jordan Pickford after a Gerard Deulofeu pass had opened up the home side's defence.

Gracia said: “Today I’m disappointed for the result, not for the performance. I think we had a good performance and in my opinion we deserved something but you need to score in the moment you dominate the game.

“They started dominating in the first 30 minutes maybe, but after I thought we played much better, the second half as well, we had more possession, the same shots on target, we had more corners.

“There were some moments at the start of the second half, for example, in two to three minutes we had three corners and there were some spells we had the clear chance to score. The clear chance for Troy, the crossbar with Dawson, but in a performance if you are not able to score with these chances then you will pay for it.

“When we play against Everton, they are always equal games in my opinion and you have to take care of the details if you want to get points.”

Asked if it was disappointing that his side were again forced to play catch-up following last week’s 3-0 defeat to Brighton & Hove Albion, Gracia said: “I prefer to speak about today. If I speak about the last game against Brighton, everybody is agreed we played really bad but it’s the past and I prefer to speak about today when in my opinion we had a good performance with a bad result, I agree, but it is the right way if we want to improve and get better results in the future.

“Today I am happy with the performance knowing we have many things to improve on, but there are many positives as well. I prefer to think this way knowing we’ve played only two games.

“Last season, it’s true, we were able to win four games in a row [at the start of the season], but now we have to be calm and to work hard and prepare the same way for the next game.”