Quique Sanchez Flores thinks Watford's punishing 8-0 defeat to Manchester City will damage his reputation with his employers, despite coming in just his second game in charge.

The head coach apologised numerous times to the club's supporters following the thumping loss, but claims that the nature of the performance makes his position as coach more difficult.

"We know how tough is the Premier League and every single match," said Sanchez Flores.

"When we accepted the invitation of the club to come here, to lead the team, we knew we were going to play against Arsenal and we were going to play against Manchester City.

"It's not about the margin you have when you come or not. Pep said yesterday in his press conference we know it's not about you as a coach, it's about the results.

"So, of course, the result today it damages a lot myself, but one week ago, the results supported me. 

"We can see more than one week, we can see longer than one next match. It's like this, so we need to live with this kind of consequence. It's like this, it's our work.

"First we have to say sorry to the fans because they came to the stadium waiting for a good performance from the team and it was very difficult to be on the pitch today.

"After 30 seconds we realised it would be very tough and then after 15 minutes it was impossible to play like this."

The Spaniard remains positive that he has a good enough team to pull Watford off the bottom of the Premier League table and said he would be reacting sensibly to the defeat instead of taking a more old school approach of punishing his squad.

"This time is completely different to 20, 10 or 30 years ago," he said.

"When you lose and you have to run maybe for two hours to the forest. It's different now, we need to be sensible because the players need to play again and I need to be ready, so it's not about running more, it's about being clever and to be smart and to be positive. This is the idea."