It’s fair to say that after the high of beating Southampton the previous weekend, the Hornets were brought down to earth with a bump on Saturday.

After such a composed performance against the Saints, there was a sense of cautious optimism from what I had seen on social media heading into the Manchester City game at Vicarage Road, but that had all been blown out of the window in a 10-minute spell just before half-time.

The scoreline doesn’t make good reading and I think you’ve just got to admit that Manchester City were far too good for us. There’s no shame in admitting that. Even with a first-choice defence with the likes of Sebastian Prodl, Younes Kaboul or Miguel Britos available, Saturday’s game was always going to be difficult regardless of who was playing.

City have proven in the last week that on their day, they can blow any team away with their wealth of attacking options. They tore both Liverpool and Feyenoord to pieces in their previous two games and on paper, you’d think they have the best squad and manager in the league. That certainly proved to be the case on Saturday anyway, as Man City would have beaten anyone with that kind of performance.

But despite a 6-0 defeat, I’ve got to say, I didn’t think Watford played that badly. Even Pat Nevin on BBC Radio Five Live echoed a similar view as well. In his own words, he felt that Watford ‘just played a brilliant team’ and that pretty much summed up my thoughts too.

We didn’t just sit back and let City walk all over us. We did try to get forward when we could and tried to play some good football too. The scoreline makes out that the game was a complete catastrophe but that wasn’t the case.

I don’t want to make excuses, but luck wasn’t on our side at the weekend. The first and third goals were tight, but should have been ruled out for offside and the Hornets had a good claim for a penalty as well. Etienne Capoue and Richarlison also missed good chances on Saturday, but in the end, we were just overwhelmed by City’s attacking talent, who didn’t give us a moment’s peace, and I’m not ashamed to say that at all.

The likes of Sergio Aguero, Gabriel Jesus and Kevin De Bruyne proved to be too much to handle, but we won’t be the only team who will say that this season, because those three players alone can trouble any team on their day.

We’ve just got to look at it as one game and move on. Watford are not going to be judged on matches like these. In the end, it is just three points dropped.

Let’s face it, as much as it was great to go into the game at the weekend in fourth place, realistically, we’re not going to be challenging the big boys for the Premier League title or a place in the top four. Not yet, at least.

If we can pick up points against the sides around and above us in the Premier League, then we can enjoy matches against these big teams without any pressure.

The early signs are indeed promising for this Watford side under Marco Silva. I think most fans would have gratefully accepted eight points from a possible 15 from our first five games back in August, and that’s just what we’ve got at this moment in time.

Saturday aside, it has been an excellent start to the season under Silva and with games against Swansea and West Bromwich Albion coming up before the international break, we’ve got a great opportunity to add to our points tally.

Keep the faith, and hopefully, it will be onwards and upwards from here.

Bradley Hayden is the founder and sole writer of @WatfordFCBlog