Walter Mazzarri was critical of Christian Kabasele for his part in Bournemouth's second goal, but the views expressed in the privacy of the dressing room may have been much stronger after the defender went to ground with cramp at exactly the wrong moment in this afternoon's 2-2 draw.

The visitors were leading 2-1 through goals from the Belgian international and Troy Deeney when Andrew Surman played a forward pass with eight minutes remaining. Kabasele would have been in a position to deal with it had he still been on his feet, but he was lying on his back as the ball ran through to Benik Afobe and the substitute got away from Younes Kaboul to fire across and beyond Heurelho Gomes to equalise.

Asked about the incident, the Hornets head coach said: “He’s a young player and he didn’t think about it because he had cramp. He could have told me before or tried to stay on his feet. He could have done it better and I’m not particularly happy about that situation.”

Both of the Hornets’ goals came from corners and although they struggled to test goalkeeper Artur Boruc from open play, the Watford boss still felt his side deserved to win.

“I think we lost two points,” he said. “We deserved to win but we conceded two mistakes which allowed them to score two goals and in the second half we could have scored another goal as well.”

The draw extended Watford’s Premier League run without a win to a seventh game, but Mazzarri believes a combination of factors are working against his side when asked if they had a confidence issue.

“We lose some points through mistakes where we pay the highest price,” he said. “Also we keep getting the injuries that doesn’t allow us to have the full squad and we’re unlucky as well because if you saw the game against Middlesbrough we hit the post, we deserved to win but the ball didn’t want to go in. It’s all of these things together that brings us here.”