Joao Pedro's penalty secured a 1-0 win for Watford away to Preston on Tuesday as the Hornets moved up to third place in the English Championship.

Victory left the Hornets three points behind second-placed Brentford, having played one game more, with only the top two in the second-tier at the end of the regular assured of promotion to the lucrative Premier League.

The decisive moment at Deepdale came in the 51st minute after Brazilian forward Pedro was brought down by Tom Barkhuizen and then promptly got up to score from the penalty spot as Watford won for the second league match in a row following their 6-0 thrashing of Bristol City on Saturday.

"I think it was a good performance for us because we showed the very good team spirit that we already have and we played with passion," said Watford manager Xisco Munoz.

"We had control of the game in the first half and in the second half we lost the momentum at times. But everyone played together and we worked very hard."

Liam Lindsay headed a corner over the bar and dragged a shot wide as Preston went in search of an equaliser, but the hosts rarely troubled Watford goalkeeper Daniel Bachmann.