Christian Kabasele felt he was harshly treated when VAR officials overturned a yellow card in Watford's 2-1 win over Wolverhampton Wanderers and instead suggested his challenge was worthy of a red.

Simon Hooper was on VAR duties for the game at Vicarage Road and encouraged referee Andrew Madley to rethink the booking he awarded to Kabasele for a challenge on Diogo Jota.

Hooper decided that the Belgian defender was the last man and was denying Jota a goalscoring opportunity and so Madley's on-field decision to issue a yellow was changed to a red, leaving the Hornets with ten men for the final 20 minutes of the match.

Speaking after the game, the Belgian defender said he felt VAR was misused as Madley's error was not clear and obvious.

"The VAR was there to clear the clear and obvious mistakes of the referee," he said.

"He had the assistant to judge if I was the last man or not and he gave me the yellow, so I don't understand why they overturned the decision and for me it's really harsh."

Nevertheless Kabasele was delighted to see his side finish the game with their lead still intact and said new head coach Nigel Pearson had helped recover their team spirit.

However, he said this season now feels like a bit of a waste and that he believes the Hornets could have achieved much more had they started playing in the same way from the beginning. 

"Of course we showed again a great team spirit and it's a shame because when you see how we are since the new manager is here, it's a waste for us, we shouldn't be in that position," he said.

"He [Pearson] gave us a lot of confidence I think. He insists on the point that we don't have the quality to go down, we have enough quality to stay up and we look at each other and we talk to ourselves and say: 'listen there's a lot of quality in this room, we cannot go down.'"