Watford 0-0 Queens Park Rangers: Hornets held but extend unbeaten home run to 15 matches

But the Hoops twice went close to a late winner, with Harrison Ashby skewing a shot wide when one-on-one and Celar crashing a shot against the outside of the right-hand post in a frantic finale.

The point was not enough to lift Marti Cifuentes’ side out of the relegation places, despite QPR now going three matches unbeaten, but it was an impressive display against an in-form Hornets side who failed to narrow the gap to the automatic promotion places.

No Championship side has scored fewer than QPR’s tally of 15 league goals this season, and it proved their Achilles heel again as they created chances but forced just one save from Bachmann, with Nicolas Madsen side-footing a glorious first-half chance well wide.

Watford’s defence struggled to cope with set-pieces and were fortunate not to concede a penalty kick before the break when Ryan Porteous swung an arm towards the ball.

Hornets boss Tom Cleverley reacted to a below-par display with a double change at the break, bringing on Kwadwo Baah, whose downward header soon drew the first meaningful save from Paul Nardi.

The Hoops keeper came off his line smartly to block Giorgi Chakvetadze’s close-range strike and then did well to turn Louza’s curling effort around the post, with Vakoun Bayo lurking.

Yet the visitors withstood the pressure to earn a fourth clean sheet in seven matches and continued to threaten, but could not quite gift Cifuentes a victory in his 50th Championship match in charge.