Johnson also admitted that he may have made an error in playing with three strikers for the first part of the match at Vicarage Road on Tuesday evening.
"I came here to be bold, we came to be bold, and I gave us the shape to be bold with three strikers, but it didn't turn out that way.
"After 25 minutes I realised that wasn't working on the day, or they didn't make it work.
"We were getting bullied a little bit in the first half through clever play. It was good play, it was strong play and Watford's two forwards were lively.
"The second half was really the boys trying to save face and to get stronger with their centre-forwards and they competed a little bit better all over the field.
"There still wasn't an end product on the day, which we're really disappointed with.
"We were second best on the day."