Tom Cleverley claimed Watford smelled “blood” as they hunted down and killed off Arsenal.
And the England midfielder, whose side were destroyed 6-0 in their last home game by Manchester City, admitted his Hornets had nothing to fear against a team without Alexis Sanchez.
Troy Deeney later went on TV to accuse Arsene Wenger’s side of lacking “cojones” after bullying them into submission. And even the Gunners' boss could not defend the lack of desire to prevent Cleverley’s stoppage-time winner.
It was an unappealing glimpse of the near-future for Arsenal fans — no Sanchez, who had a “thigh” injury on his return from Chile duty, while second-half sub Mesut Ozil marked the latest date on his farewell tour with a criminally casual miss.
The contrast in the attitudes shown by Deeney and Ozil after entering the fray from the bench summed up the difference between the two sides at Vicarage Road.
Throw in Arsenal’s traditional defensive flakiness and getting overtaken in the table by Watford, who now sit in the last Champions League place, is not such a great surprise.
Saturday's was a shocking defeat arguably as psychologically damaging as that 4-0 August thrashing at Anfield.
Cleverley, who crashed home the winner for his first goal since 2015, said: “You smell a little bit of blood. But not just with Arsenal, you do that at home with any team.
“I felt we were on the front foot and I gambled a little bit for the goal and if you were a bit more wary of a team then maybe I wouldn’t have done.”
Per Mertesacker gave Arsenal the 39th-minute lead with his side’s first away goal of the season – and his first in the Premier League since December 2013. But the game changed after the break with the introductions of Deeney and Etienne Capoue – two physical players Arsenal could not handle.
After Ozil had shot tamely at Heurelho Gomes when clean through, Richarlison won a soft penalty — Deeney converted for his first goal since April.
Then Cleverley won it after striker Deeney caused more chaos in the Gunners box.
Holding midfielder Granit Xhaka stood and watched it all unfold just a couple of yards in front of him.
Wenger branded the penalty award “scandalous” but admitted: “For the second goal, we can only look at ourselves.”
Arsenal are already nine points off the title pace after their seven-game unbeaten run came to a shuddering halt.
Asked about insipid Ozil’s contribution, the Gunners' boss said: “It’s difficult to talk about any individual after a game like that. You don’t want to go into that. He had a good chance to score the second goal.
“On a positive note, he gave a good ball to [Alex] Iwobi as well to [have a chance to] score the second. After that, when the ball is in the air to defend, it’s not his strengths.
“Overall, it’s difficult to speak about any individual performance. He only had one week full training, he’ll need more work.
“We had the chances today, like we had at Stoke [where Arsenal lost in August], but we don’t score enough goals away from home at the moment.”
Silva, who went 41 home matches unbeaten at Estoril, Sporting Lisbon and Olympiacos before arriving at Hull in January, inspired his latest side to his first victory at Vicarage Road.
Cleverley revealed: “The change from the first half to the second was down to two people — the manager really got stuck into us at half-time and said we needed to believe in ourselves more and to Troy who changed the game. We were the team on the front foot.”