Watford manager Walter Mazzarri has claimed that his side were unlucky to fall to a 1-0 defeat at the hands of Liverpool on Monday night.

Emre Can scored the only goal of the game in sensational style to give the Reds all three points at Vicarage Road, although Watford could have rescued a draw late on when Sebastian Prodl hit the crossbar in stoppage time.

Mazzarri was satisfied with his side's overall performance, but suggested that the officials were partially to blame for their defeat.

"I think that if you look at all of the Liverpool games that they play, they usually create five or six clear chances. Today we didn't concede them almost anything and had a couple of chances so overall it was a good performance," he told reporters.

"Usually I don't like to speak about luck but today we were completely unlucky. Aside from the crossbar from Prodl, there were two mistakes from the referee, offsides against Okaka and Deeney, so I think we played a good game.

"This is a team that if you leave them a lot of space they can be extremely dangerous. They were very concentrated at the back but my players had a good game."

The defeat leaves Watford 13th in the Premier League table, eight points clear of the relegation zone.