Alan Irvine branded Preston's first-half performance "awful" as they went down 2-0 at Watford.

Heidar Helguson marked his return to the Hornets' starting line-up with an early goal to put the hosts on course for victory. And on-loan Manchester United midfielder Tom Cleverley then doubled the hosts' advantage just after the hour mark.

Irvine said: "We were second best all over the pitch. In the second half we were better, but we couldn't have been any worse and I thought it was a poor performance."

The North End boss even admitted his side were struggling before they fell behind as early as the ninth minute.

"We started the game poorly and it was a very poor first-half performance from us," he continued. "We didn't do the things that we need to do. We know what we need to do to win games in this division and we didn't do them.

"We can only win games in this division by being properly organised, by everybody knowing their jobs, by everybody doing their jobs, by everybody competing, by everybody working hard and we didn't do it. We were second best all over the pitch and we won't win games if we're like that."