OTHER controversies were set to one side on Sunday as Graham Taylor vented his disappointment that his warnings to the defenders had not been heeded.

'I thought it was a very good game and at least that is pleasing, as we come to the end of our stay in the Premiership, there is a game like that. It is disappointing in as much as it is another defeat,' he said.

'As I said to the players in the dressing-room, it is alright being praised for the fightback and we have to give Arsenal credit for the way they broke at us to score their goals.

'But it isn't anything we haven't spoken about before.

'Against sides like this, you are at your most vulnerable when you have the ball. They can break at you so quickly and you have to concentrate.

'You have to be very conscious of where your man is and what you have got to do.

'You have to be thinking all of the time. If we have the ball on the edge of the opposition penalty area, and you are a defender just inside your own half, you have to assume that attack is not going to be successful and it will break down. You will get yourself in the right position then.

'You cannot afford to be ball-watching events 40 yards away because your man just walks away from you. And these fellows can put a ball on a sixpence.'

Taylor admitted they were a little shocked to have played so well but trail at the interval.

'To come in at half-time 3-0 down was not a fair reflection of the play but we created the problems for ourselves,' he said.

'Give them credit for the way they came out and approached things in the second half, but, at the end of the day, it is still another defeat.'

Taylor then turned to the goals Watford conceded. 'We have spoken about people and then you see the player do just what you have told them he can do if they do not undertake certain things to prevent it. It is one thing saying it and another stopping it,' he said.

'You have to give Henry great credit for the second goal he scored. But he came off our defenders in the first place.

'You cannot allow a player like him to come off you and then turn.

'You can allow him to come off, but not turn, but you cannot allow him to do both.

'You have to be a bit special to get the ball back if you allow him to turn. Then there is one thing you have to do and that is show him down that left-hand side. You cannot let him come across you and open up the goal.

'Now you may ask how can people think about these things in the heat of the action. At this level, you have to.

'There is no way you can let him get in between you because if they hit the ball over the top, there is only one winner.

'In a way we handled him reasonably well but you have to handle him totally well.

'These are learning lessons for our players all the time. You can't back off players as we did Henry, when he scored his second goal.

'I was so disappointed with the goals we conceded. If you took those three incidents out of the first half, we would have gone in at half time feeling we were unfortunate.'

Among the several controversies during the game was the penalty appeal.

'In the very first minute, there was a penalty. There is no doubt in my mind it was a penalty.

'People say that it doesn't matter or affect much. but to get a penalty in the first minute affects everything,' he said.

'It was a game full of incident which is good because we did not want to end the season with a series of non-events.

'But I am disappointed because I felt we could have beaten Arsenal today.'

Taylor repeatedly returned to the manner in which the goals were conceded, particularly as he had warned the players of those very dangers.

'I don't know what we were doing for the first Arsenal goal. I will have to watch that on the video but I will have to have a stiff drink before I do that,' he said, plainly feeling his players should be showing signs of having learnt more.

'We are going down with what will be seen as the lowest number of points in the Premiership history.

'What disappoints me more is that the team that survives will probably do so with the lowest number of points you need to stay up.

'I just think what a wasted, what a missed opportunity for all of us. It just capped it again today.

'We have stood here today in the last 20 minutes, watching in a thunderstorm, seeing us doing everything right but just attempting to get a point against one of the best teams in Europe.

'We got a lot of things so right but the biggest minus was that we got three things wrong.

'The thing is that we got 90 per cent of that right today. Yet on three occasions we played so naively.

'I am disappointed because not for the first time this season, I felt this was a game we should have won.'