WILL THEY SUFFER A HANGOVER FROM THE FA CUP FINAL DEFEAT?

By now, most Watford fans will have lost count of how many times they’ve been asked, “Are you over the cup final yet?”

In truth, most of the fanbase had moved on long before the final whistle, proudly waving their red and yellow flags in celebration of the huge achievement of even being there in the first place.

Emotional turmoil is nothing new for Hornets fans, but the hope is that the players dealt similarly swiftly with the disappointment. Certainly, the club are alive to the prospect of one of those lingering late-morning hangovers that just refuses to dissipate.

Ignoring the evidence would be counter-productive. Javi Gracia and his head performance analyst have pored over the game four times in order to establish what went wrong: not to wallow in misery but to seek improvement, in order to unlock this team’s potential.

The match will understandably be remembered for City’s ruthless display of domination, but Watford will feel they were in the game for 61 minutes. Roberto Pereyra spurning a golden chance when clean through at 0-0 is indicative of a wider problem. Watford have the players, and the coach, to bloody the noses of the big boys, but all too often they have fallen just short in the crucial game-defining moments against the teams above them in the table.

Clustered below the Premier League’s glass ceiling, Watford’s closest competitors Leicester, Everton, Wolves and West Ham all appear to be making solid progress, and you fear that a sloppy start could see the Hornets left behind and looking nervously down rather than optimistically up.

A repeat of last season’s opening-day home game against Brighton is the first opportunity for the players (and supporters) to get it out of their system in public. But the trip to the Etihad Stadium on September 21 is the perfect chance to demonstrate not just that they have put the chastening 6-0 defeat behind them, but also that they can pose a genuine threat to the ‘Big Six’ on a consistent basis.

Make no mistake, owner Gino Pozzo and chairman Scott Duxbury will not tolerate any moping around. They have repeatedly stated their aim is to be ‘best of the rest’. They want European football. They want progress. So Javi Gracia and the players had better load up on Berocca, chalk up the cup final humiliation as one of those nights that got away from you, and get back to business.