Moments before Joao Pedro scored the only goal of the game, James Collins saw his shot cannon off the crossbar as Town themselves went within inches of taking the lead.

The forward, as always, was honest in his reflection of the 90 minutes, saying: “I think we had chances, I thought we played okay but okay is not good enough in the Championship anymore, we need to be better than that. We need to be on the front foot more, we need to be more confident and we need to believe more that we are right to be in the place that we are and we can go away to Watford away and win, which I feel we could have done today.

“It is fine margins in this league, I think scoring the first goal is massive, it’s unlucky with Collins, he usually scores them. You can’t really say too much when he has a record like he has, usually puts those away and the next one I’m sure he will. Then they go down the other end and score so it’s fine margins in a game like this and it has cost us today.”

The Beds-Herts derby was the first contested since 2006 but missed a vital ingredient to add to the usual matchday atmosphere – the fans.

“With no fans it is always going to feel a bit dull. If the fans were here it would have been a great atmosphere something I think would have made the derby a lot better but I think we gave 100 per cent, it’s hard to comment straight after the game, we have to look back and see what the game was actually like but I thought we were okay, bit tentative at times but sometimes that’s the way it is.

“It’s tough for every game but I think our fans are unbelievable, every game we go in to, we know we’re selling out at home and we usually sell-out away as well which is crazy to think. It’s a massive miss, especially on a day like today, I think the atmosphere would have been electric really. That was a big miss for us because in a derby you need the fans to get behind you and we missed that today but same for both teams so we can’t make excuses, but we need the fans to stick with us really.

It was the first loss Town have suffered in the Sky Bet Championship this season, and with two wins from three, Cornick believes the start has still been a successful one.

“Two wins out of three is a good return, I think we had two good cup wins as well so two losses on the bounce but overall I think we’ve got to be quite happy with our start, especially with the way we have played, I think we have been brilliant up till now. Today was a bit of a down day on performances because all of our others have been really good I think so just need to bounce back really.”