Walter Mazzarri felt luck was against Watford as a wonderstrike from Emre Can, coupled with the width of the Liverpool crossbar, denied the Hornets anything from tonight's game at Vicarage Road.

The Hornets would ahve been good value for a draw in the final Premier League game of the weekend after restricting Liverpool to mostly half-chances.

Daryl Janmaat and Etienne Capoue both went close for Watford at the other end - but not as close as Sebastian Prodl, whose half-volley struck the bar in the final moments.

Those moments livened an otherwise dull game in Hertfordshire where Watford's steadfast defence largely stood strong against the fluidity of the Liverpool attack.

"They managed to score a great goal, that only champions score," Mazzarri said. "In the first half aside from another great shot from Lallana we didn’t concede anything to them.

"I usually don’t like to speak about luck but today we were very unlucky. Aside from hitting the crossbar with Prodl, there were two mistakes from the referee when he gave offsides against Deeney and Okaka in good positions.

"It's also because of the injury to Miguel Britos, which forced me into a change which meant I could not take out Niang or Deeney who were tired in the second half."

Mazzarri declined to comment on the severity of Britos' injury, but was pleased with the way Watford defended overall either side of the Uruguayan's withdrawal for Christian Kabasele before the interval.

"I think that if you look at the Liverpool games, they usually create 5-6 clear-cut chances but we didn’t give away much to them today.

"We had some chances for ourselves and overall it was a good performance."

The Italian also admitted his gameplan had been as it had appeared; to soak up Liverpool pressure for the opening hour, before allowing the Reds to tire and throwing caution to the wind as the game wore on.

He said: "There was that, but Liverpool are a team that if you allow them space, they can be extremely dangerous.

"They also came from a defeat which made everything more difficult because they were very ready especially at the back.

"My players played well and the only thing is that we could have done a bit better in the final third, with Deeney and Niang linking up better."