Craig Cathcart felt Watford deserved to get something from their 1-0 defeat away at Crystal Palace on Saturday.

The Northern Irish centre-back believed a lack of cutting edge in attack was the Hornets' main problem in the loss at Selhurst Park, although he admits he perhaps could have done more to prevent Jordan Ayew from scoring the only goal of the game.

Cathcart also said that it was important for Watford to remain consistent now, with just nine games reamining and only one goal currently separating them from the relegation zone, and that he was disappointed not to follow up the previous week's win over Liverpool with more points.

"It's key at this stage - we want to be consistent," he said.

"It's disappointing. We felt like we'd done enough in the game to possibly get a point. If we had maintained the pressure, we could have ended up getting the win, if we'd have got the goal, but it wasn't to be. We have to pick ourselves up quick and move ourselves onto next week now.

"I think the performance wasn't too bad, we needed to be a bit more clinical with the final pass. We're disappointed with the goal as well, they got to the edge of the box and we tried to put pressure on but he scored, so there's things to work on, but overall I don't think the performance was too bad. I think we deserved something from the game."

Looking ahead to the final nine games of the Premier League campaign, Cathcart said he and his team-mates were all too aware of the pressure on them to find a way to keep the Hornets in the top flight.

He said it was most important for all involved to focus on their own challenge and not pay too much attention to what is going on around them, either in the press, or with other teams.

"Personally I don't really pick up on anything that's written in the press, I just try to focus on our job and I think everyone's the same," he said.

"We can't really now look outside of ourselves. We're the ones in the situation, we have to pick ourselves up and move on."