Town boss Joe Royle was once again left bemoaning a poor refereeing decision after the Blues were denied an obvious penalty at Watford. Alan Lee was upended inside the area by Malky Mackay moments before Nicky Forster netted Town's equaliser but referee Colin Webster failed to award a spotkick.

Royle said: "I will be writing to the relevant authorities to complain, but I'm wasting my breath.

"How can everyone in the ground see the penalty incident and yet not the linesman or the referee? It was a blatant penalty and the Watford players were laughing about it in the tunnel at the end.

"Young was well offside for the second goal, too. We matched Watford in the second half, but we needed proper decisions and two have gone against us.

"We deserved something from the game though, and I was happy with the general performance.

"We had a right go at them in the second half and played a little more direct on a pitch where passing was very difficult to say the least."

The Town manager tips Crystal Palace to win the play-offs but feels that luck has to be on your side: "It doesn't matter where you finish, you just need to keep your fingers crossed. But Adrian Boothroyd has done a wonderful job to get Watford into the top six."

Watford boss Boothroyd admitted his side were lucky with the referee's decision not to give a spotkick: "I have seen those incidents result in penalties, and I can understand Joe being upset.

"But we have also had some decisions go against us. These things even themselves out over a season."

Boothroyd staged a penalty shootout involving his players after the final whistle with the crowd encouraged to boo and cheer to emulate the atmosphere of a play-off game. The Hornets manager felt thought it a useful exercise: "We are a young team and we need to be as prepared as we can be for the play-offs.

"You can practise in training but you cannot re-create a penalty shootout under match conditions, so we thought we would re-create it at Vicarage Road - and the fans were brilliant.

"I had told the players last Friday, and we would have done it regardless of the result of this match. I learned lots from the penalty shootout. I have an idea of what I would do if it were to happen to us in the play-offs."

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