Watford goalkeeper Ben Foster said some of his team-mates have not been prepared to give maximum effort over 90 minutes after the Hornets’ relegation from the Premier League was confirmed on Saturday evening report bbc.com/sports.

Watford were sent down for the second time in three seasons after a 1-0 defeat at Crystal Palace.

Foster blamed Watford’s downfall on poor home form and inconsistency.

“You just don’t really know what you’re going to get from us, to be perfectly honest,” the 39-year-old said.

“We’ve got too many players who are happy to put it in for an hour, 70 minutes, but then probably fall off and happily let it go in the last 20 minutes.

“You can’t have that. When you’re a team like us, the minimum is giving it everything you’ve got. The ability you can forego a little bit and accept that you might not have the quality of some players, but you’ve got to put the effort in.”

Watford went into the game at Selhurst Park with their fate all but sealed following last week’s home defeat by Burnley, which Foster admitted “really took it out” of the Hornets squad.

“You could see the confidence was low, we were really lacking today,” added the former England keeper, who was also part of the Watford side that suffered relegation at the end of the 2019-20 season.

“Last week’s defeat by Burnley really took it out of us. We knew before the game that it was nigh-on impossible. We wanted to come and compete, and I think we did.”

Palace’s winner arrived through a first-half Wilfried Zaha penalty after Watford defender Hassane Kamara – who was later sent off – was judged to have used his arm to block a Michael Olise header.

“We felt it probably wasn’t a penalty so we feel a little bit hard done by,” said Foster.

“But credit to the lads in front of me today. They gave what they could but the confidence was lacking.”