Slaven Bilic felt Watford fully deserved their victory but was disappointed with the manner in which his West Ham side contributed to their own demise following their 2-0 defeat at Vicarage Road this afternoon.

The Hammers came to Vicarage Road with an unbeaten away record in the Premier League and having won at Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City. But they were very much second best against a Hornets side who produced arguably their best all-round display of the campaign to date as an Odion Ighalo brace lifted the hosts to ninth in the Premier League table.

“They didn’t surprise me,” the Hammers boss said when asked about Watford. “They were what we’ve seen in their recent games. Sometimes they lose the game, sometimes they win the game but it is a team full of experience, it is a team that is very well organised and running a lot, starting from the two strikers. Sometimes they play better, sometimes they play worse but they always showed this amount of energy. Today they played a good game and they totally deserved the three points and I congratulate them and that’s it. It’s a tough league and every team’s got enough quality to hope and stay up.”

West Ham finished the game with ten men after James Collins was sent off for a late challenge on Ighalo. Asked if he had any complaints about referee Keith Stroud’s decision, Bilic replied: “I’ve got more complaints with our play and how we helped them. With the greatest of respect to them and as I said they have a good team. But we gave them a hand and we helped them.

“Of course you can lose games but you can live with defeats, you’re not happy but you can live with them if your team gave everything and today we didn’t. I mean we gave but there’s something between giving and giving big time. We’ll have to make sure that this was a one off.”

Bilic continued: “You asked me about the red card, it didn’t affect the outcome, the game was practically over but it’s a shame because James has been playing in good form. The ref can justify the red card. But from my point of view, it wasn’t reckless, it wasn’t at full speed, it wasn’t a dangerous tackle, it was just unnecessary out of frustration and he didn’t have to give it.”

Following last weekend’s victory at home to Chelsea, the Hammers started the game well enough as they looked to continue their best ever start to a Premier League campaign after ten games. But Watford gradually began to get the upper hand and went close to taking the lead a few times before Andy Carroll, making his first start since February, made a mistake following a Ben Watson free-kick, allowing Nathan Ake to set up Ighalo for the opener.

Bilic replaced Manuel Lanzini and Victor Moses with Mauro Zarate and Enner Valencia at the start of the second half in an attempt to kick start the Irons, but within three minutes of the restart his side were 2-0 down. This time James Tomkins was at fault when he failed to deal with an Ikechi Anya cut back and Ighalo confidently fired in his second of the game.

West Ham were fortunate not to fall further behind as their opponents cut through them with ease at times, although Valencia did almost pull one back when he hit the post after seizing on a mistake from Craig Cathcart.

But a forgettable afternoon for the visiting fans was compounded when Collins saw red after catching Ighalo after the knee with a late challenge in the final ten minutes.