BURNLEY boss Steve Cotterill was full of praise for his young guns despite defeat at Vicarage Road.

Such is the injury crisis facing his squad Cotterill was forced to give full debuts to teenagers Kyle Lafferty, Chris McCann and Karl Bermingham - and all three put in manful peformances.

But he was also full of praise for the more experienced players, many of whom had to play out of position.

He said: "I thought the young boys were fantastic today. Young Karl Bermingham has only just met the lads and he had to play wide even though he's a striker.

"Kyle Lafferty and Chris McCann also played well so there's some really big plus points for us today and I'm really proud of them.

"You can be proud of them last week when we won 4-0 but you really find out about your players in situations that faced us and I'm really proud of them.

"I was very proud of my young players and very proud of the senior ones as well and we'll be ok.

"We're not quite getting what we deserve at the moment but we'll be okay."

Cotterill was also rueing another injury as Frank Sinclair was carried off after hurting his hamstring but the Burnley boss said he had no other choice but to play his captain.

He added: "He had to play. We had to take a gamble with Frank and he had to play. There was no John McGreal, no Wayne Thomas and they were on the bench because there was nobody else.

"We've been handicapped all season. We've never had a fully fit squad and we've got a full back four - McGreal, Thomas, Sinclair and Karbassiyoon - unavailable to us and we can't afford not have those experienced players in our team.

"If we can get a full 11 out we'll be alright. With a full 11 we'll give anyone a game. "

But despite his lack of numbers, Cotterill thought his team were unlucky not to come away with something from Hertfordshire.

"Watford had two deflected goals last week at Cardiff so maybe they're due their bit of luck," he said. "They've had the rub of the green with two deflections last week and they had it again with a deflected goal against us but all we need to do is concentrate on us at the moment.

"We're man enough in our defeat. We'll take it on the chin, whether we deserved it or not, and we'll move on."

As for the penalty incident, which saw Watford keeper Ben Foster being adjudged to have fouled Ade Akinbiyi, Cotterill was pleased that the Hornets stopper stayed on the field.

"I don't advocate anyone being sent off," he said. "I don't like it - let's play 11 versus 11 all the time. "He's a good boy Ben. I know him from my time at Stoke and Watford's a great place for him to learn at."

Watford boss Adrian Boothroyd was happy with the result and defended his players for not putting the ball out of play despite Brian Jensen lying in obvious distress.

"We've got to win games," he said. When asked if his team should have knocked the ball out of play he added: "No I don't. I think they should have put it in the top corner. We want to win.

"In my first game at Turf Moor, the ball was kicked at Ade (Akinbiyi) and he brought it down with his hands and went on and scored. That's life."

jkayley@the-let.co.uk