Nigel Pearson felt his players deserved “incredible credit” for the way they tried to beat Tottenham Hotspur after they had to settle for a point following a 0-0 draw at Vicarage Road.

Troy Deeney had a golden opportunity to make it four consecutive Premier League wins for the Hornets, only to see his second-half penalty saved.

However, Spurs almost nicked at the death when Erik Lamela saw his effort cleared off the line by Watford substitute Ignacio Pussetto with his first touch in English football.

Reflecting on the Hornets’ effort, Pearson said: “Many times I’ve spoken about the fact that we might have to deal with a few difficult times. Sometimes that will be losing, sometimes it will be dealing with the disappointment of thinking we should have won today, but I’ve seen players again putting in an incredibly honest performance and a very good performance too.

“We played against a side with lots of attacking options who dominated the first 15 minutes of the game. We struggled to get a foothold in the game because they came with a positive intent themselves.

“When I look back at any performance and result the first thing I do is to think about whether we’ve had the right performance and I think again the players take incredible credit from the way they’ve tried to win the game today.

“On another day maybe I could be sitting here talking about winning three points, but it’s another hard-fought point, a clean sheet, a game that we can look back on and say we’ve created some great chances but also a game in which I know we’ve had one of our attacking players clear one off the line.

“So all those things together would suggest to me that we’ve got a group of players who get the situation that we are in and are doing everything they can to get the right results for us.”

Watford found themselves penned back in the first 15 minutes as Spurs dominated possession and the head coach admitted: “I would, and the players would have liked to press a bit higher, but when you play against one of Jose’s [Mourinho’s] teams you know that there’s going to be some tactical conundrums to solve.

“They started very well in possession and so it meant we had to defend a little bit deeper than we would like, but we found solutions on the pitch.

“When you play against a side like Spurs, when you do get the ball back it’s important that you make the most of your possession.

"Today it took a while for us to find our rhythm, but we did do and the positives I take from that are when we are not playing with the fluidity that we would like to have the players are still prepared to do and find the answers out on the pitch by sticking in there until we can get the ascendency.

“Towards the end of the first half and certainly in the second half for long periods we caused them lots of problems and on another day I could be talking about converting the chances and winning the games.

"It’s not the case but I am still really pleased with how the players have approached today because it’s a tough game for us.”’