Watford 0-0 Hull City: Daniel Bachmann saves penalty as Tigers' play-off hopes dented

Watford have won 12 of their 44 league games this season

Hull City's Championship play-off hopes were dented as they played out a goalless draw with Watford.

Daniel Bachmann saved Ozan Tufan's penalty early on in what turned into an evenly-contested affair at Vicarage Road after Hull's positive start.

But neither side could bulge the net as Watford's winless league run on home soil was stretched to 12 games.

Liam Rosenior's side sit six points adrift of the top six with three matches left to play.

The Tigers were awarded a penalty with just nine minutes on the clock after Wesley Hoedt brought down Fábio Carvalho, although Bachmann dived low to his left keep out Tufan's spot-kick.

That rescue act lifted the hosts who saw Yaser Asprilla and Emmanuel Dennis spurn chances before Bachmann once again denied Tufan, this time from a clever backheel.

In the final stages of the first half, Edo Kayembe saw his deflected effort go wide as the score remained level at the break.

With games running out in the regular season, Hull knew they realistically needed to find a winner in the second half in their pursuit of West Bromwich Albion and Norwich City.

But they needed a last-ditch challenge from Matty Jacob to thwart Dennis just as the Watford man prepared to pull the trigger following a fine run from Asprilla.

Ryan Andrews then failed to hit the target as both sides lacked quality in the final third with the contest remaining finely poised.

Substitutes Mileta Rajovic and Matheus Martins were both unable to beat Ryan Allsop late on while Bachmann had to be alert to deny Carvalho and Jacob Greaves as the points were shared in Hertfordshire.

Watford boss Tom Cleverley:

"I thought it was spirited, we looked motivated. (But) I thought we were flat for an hour and we need to make it happen rather than wait for it to happen.

"I thought the introduction of the substitutes gave us a little bit of freshness and a real purpose in some of our good play.

"In the end I thought a draw was probably a fair result. They had less chances but probably bigger ones."

Hull City boss Liam Rosenior:

"The lads are devastated. I can't fault their effort, their endeavour or fight for the shirt.

"Their goalkeeper (Daniel Bachmann) was the man-of-the-match, he had one of those special days where everything he seemed to do was magnificent.

"We've just got to keep maintaining this level of performance and keep believing because Norwich have dropped points and we're still in with a shout so we need to just focus on what we can do."