Boss Jim Magilton felt the Blues' lack of belief led to the surrender of their early lead as Watford ran out 2-1 winners at Vicarage Road. Pablo Couñago scored in the second minute but John Eustace and John-Joe O'Toole netted after the break.

Magilton said: "The introduction of O'Toole obviously helped them but it's a game we should never have lost. The game should have been out of sight.

"We got the perfect start and played well for 20 minutes. If Kevin Lisbie or Jon Walters had scored, then it makes things very difficult for them and we had other chances as well.

"But we didn't have enough bravery on the ball, and I include the senior players in that. That was very disappointing.

"We've got to regroup now. We have two weeks to pull ourselves together and get going.

"I don't think we have got going from the first game of the season. We have got players who are sitting back and waiting for things to happen and that's not good enough.

"Their best chances came because we were sloppy in possession, gave them the incentive and they didn't disappointment.

"But the game should have been dead by the end of the first half, but we didn't take the opportunities we created and we gave them unbelievable opportunities because, at the moment, we don't have that strength of belief and I think the break can't come quickly enough for us.”

Watford boss Aidy Boothroyd felt his side went from the ridiculous to the sublime: "We needed to do something different because we were abysmal in the first half, Ipswich were by far the better team.

"I don't think we could have got much worse to be honest in that first half.

"Thankfully, we went from one extreme to the other and in the second half we got amongst them, stopped giving them presents in front of our goal and created a bit of a problem for them.

"If we hadn't have got the winner I would have been disappointed because I thought we deserved it in the end."

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