Watford captain Troy Deeney has confirmed that his side targeted the "weaker" Liverpool centre-back Dejan Lovren during their shock 3-0 win over the runaway Premier League leaders on Saturday.

Lovren was drafted in for the injured Joe Gomez to make his first Premier League start since December 7, and he struggled with the physicality of Deeney in particular as Watford ended Liverpool's 44-match unbeaten run and 18-game winning streak in style.

Deeney rounded off the memorable result following Ismaila Sarr's brace, and after the match he confirmed that he looked to exploit Lovren rather than Virgil van Dijk.

"Van Dijk is a class act, he's top five defenders in the world and it's tough to get anything from him. He's 6'6, fast, strong and you try and pick on the weaker of the two – no disrespect to Lovren," Deeney told Sky Sports News.

"He tried to fight me from the throw in and I rolled him. He tried to fight me and wasn't even watching the ball and it worked out perfectly because we scored from it. It was hard work, putting in a shift. Somebody had to beat Liverpool, why not us? We're hard to beat on our patch, we go after second balls and make it difficult for them.

"At half time, everyone had a belief that we could get at them. We had it at Man Utd, we were the better team in the first half but then conceded a penalty and struggled. We had a tight block and hit them on the break, we have pace on the break and we got the goals today."

The result lifted Watford out of the relegation zone on goal difference ahead of next Saturday's away trip to Crystal Palace.