LUTHER Blissett believes Cherries would have learned some valuable lessons from their Vicarage Road beating – from two contrasting halves.

Blissett was among the crowd to see two of his former clubs do battle on Saturday with Watford eventually running out convincing 6-1 victors.

Despite the scoreline, Blissett says Cherries would have taken encouragement from an impressive first-half showing and some harsh pointers from a disastrous second.

Delivering his post-match analysis to the Daily Echo, Blissett said: “Having kept a lot of possession early on, Watford took the lead as Bournemouth tried to find their feet. But they capitalised on a mistake and engineered a very well-taken equaliser.

“Watford raised the intensity of their game in the second half and two early goals probably settled it.

"Until then, Bournemouth had acquitted themselves well and had done to Watford what they did to so many teams away from home last season. They broke well, penned them in and played some good football.

“They didn’t deserve to lose 6-1. The difference was, having played a lower level last season and been top dogs, they would always have felt they could get it back into games after they had gone behind.

“Against a Watford team that is in such good form so early in the season it would probably have been more prudent for them to try to keep it tight and see if they could get one back and try to get back in the game that way.

"But it seemed as if they felt they could have gone on to get it back and gone into the lead, which is difficult to do in the Championship because the opposition tends to be that much stronger.”