Head Coach Chris Wilder lamented a lack of cutting edge following Watford’s frustrating 1-1 draw at home to Sky Bet Championship strugglers Wigan Athletic.

Keinan Davis broke the deadlock on the stroke of half-time to put the Hornets on the path towards successive wins in the space of four days, but after James McClean equalised against the run of play six minutes into the restart the Latics held out for a share of the spoils.

The hosts dominated possession for large periods and conjured up 17 shots compared to their opponents’ six, but with only three of those being on target Wilder accepted that quality was lacking in the final third.

“It’s a missed opportunity and it is frustrating,” the 55-year-old said. “I think they started brightly and then we got a foothold in the game. We got into some good positions, but we just didn’t show the ability that we know we’ve got.

“That final pass, cross or finish just wasn’t there, and some of our decision-making was poor. When we got deep into their territory we just tried to be too intricate and thread balls through their three centre-halves, but when they line up like that you’ve got to go around the back.

“They were fighting for their lives, and we were looking for a winner but didn’t get it. In the end we come away disappointed that we haven’t done enough to get the victory.”

Wilder explained how he changed the shape of the team in the latter stages as they went all out for the three points, though he admitted that some of his players were lacking in energy as a result of having had three games in the space of a week.

He said: “I made the tactical decision to go and chase the game. I felt the game was there to be won, and that we needed to go and win it, so we did that and made positive substitutions that made it 4-2-4 at the end.

“We went for it, but we just ran out of legs and made some bad decisions at the end. I was disappointed at the fact our energy levels did drop - it’s always difficult when you have three games in a short space of time, but that’s the way the Championship is.

“We want to be a high-energy team in and out of possession, but there isn’t going to be a magic pill where I can just inject energy into the players for these last eight games. It’s something difficult to work with, with not much of the season left now.”

As well as harbouring disappointment with his own team’s display, Wilder was quick to acknowledge the determined performance put on by Wigan, who remain deep in the relegation mire amid significant off-field issues.

He continued: “There’s no doubt they’ve got fight in them - they’ve had some decent results before today, and they’ve not really been rolled over by anybody.

“You have to give an enormous amount of credit to Shaun [Maloney, Wigan manager] and his players because with what they’re going through you can either put the white flag up or have a go, and they were right at it today.

“I know what they’re going through because I’ve had to deal with similar on a few occasions during my career, and they’ve come here today and given it everything they’ve got and got a result at the end of it.”

With the international break now upon us, Watford sit in 10th place with just eight games of the season remaining, and a trip to fierce rivals Luton Town lying in store next up on Saturday April 1 (12.30pm KO).

After a couple of days off the players not departing to represent their countries will regroup with Wilder and his staff at the London Colney training ground later in the week, while a small selection of the squad are set to feature in the Under-21s’ Vicarage Road clash against QPR on Monday (March 20, 1pm KO).

Wilder added: “It’s easy to think that the international break is a golden opportunity to spend a prolonged period working with your players, but we’ve got a lot of guys leaving us so it is a bit difficult. Hopefully they come back fit and healthy, ready for eight huge games.

“The players have a couple of days off, but a few will play for the Under-21s and we’ll be down at the stadium for that. Then we’ll be hard at work on the training pitch, ready to get going again for the run-in in a couple of weeks.”