Leicester City striker David Nugent admitted his side had felt the pressure of being high up in the Championship after a fearful first-half performance against Watford.
Nugent scored City's only goal as they fell to their second successive defeat on Saturday.
The 2-1 loss sees them slip to fourth in the Championship table, behind Cardiff, Middlesbrough and Crystal Palace.
City made a woefully slow start to the game and found themselves 1-0 down after 15 minutes.
A second goal looked to have put the game to bed in the second half before Nugent's 71st-minute strike gave City hope of salvaging a point.
"We looked scared," said the 27-year-old, who bagged his first goal in four games.
"The first half we were terrible, simple as that. We didn't look like we wanted it. The players didn't want to get on the ball like usual and it showed.
"The gaffer told us at half-time that it wasn't acceptable, and I thought we came out in the second and put up a good fight. But we just weren't good enough.
"We never pressed from the front, we weren't picking up second balls, they were lumping balls forward and getting through one-on-one all the time.
"We knew what Watford were going to do, we've been working on it in training. We knew their wing-backs were going to push on and get possession of the ball and we just couldn't cope with it."
The striker said that the pressure of being high up in the table could have been a factor in his side's display.
"I think it might be the pressure that we are up there (in the table)," he said.
"We haven't been up there for a while, we weren't there all last season so this is the first time with this group of players.
"It's tough trying to stay up there, every team was gunning for us as we were second in the league. But we've got to be better.
"We were there for a reason so we've got to show everyone why we were there."
City had gone into the game adopting a 4-3-3 formation, with Ben Marshall and Anthony Knockaert playing as wide strikers. But the more Watford pressed, the more it turned into a 4-5-1, which often left Nugent isolated.
"It was hard up there," said Nugent. "I was playing up front on my own for a large part and, every time the ball came up, I had about four players surrounding me, so it was pretty tough.
"The gaffer picks the team and, if I'm playing up front on my own, I'll always do my best and try to score goals."
Leicester now make a tough trip to Bolton tomorrow in an attempt to get back to winning ways after their two-game slump.
