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Joao Pedro's magnificent curling strike earned Watford victory at Derby County in a scrappy Championship encounter otherwise short on quality and incident.

An error-strewn affair, without even a shot on target until the 74th minute, was eventually decided by a real moment of class from the 19-year-old, turning on the edge of the box before bending a brilliant right-footed effort into the top corner.

Until that point neither side had done enough to justify the three points, although Watford did look the more threatening.

The Hornets probed throughout but were often let down by the final pass, while they also had strong appeals for a penalty turned down after half-time when Nathaniel Chalobah's shot appeared to strike the arm of Derby's George Evans.

The home team's clearest sight of goal came in the immediate aftermath of the Brazilian's opener for the visitors, with Wayne Rooney side-footing wide from just inside the area.

The former England captain also lifted a stoppage-time free-kick onto the roof of the net with goalkeeper Ben Foster sprawling across his goal, but the hosts' late flurry did little to mask an otherwise insipid display.

The result leaves the Rams still searching for a first home win of the season, while they have won just one of their seven games at Pride Park since football resumed in June.

Victory for Watford, who have now won three of their five matches following relegation from the Premier League, moves them into the play-off places.

It also ended a run of 10 games without an away win dating back to their time in the top flight.

Derby head coach Phillip Cocu:

"I think we deserved maybe more than a point but sometimes in football you play a good game and you don't win.

"But I'm very pleased with the game we played - we took initiative, we dominated and combined good football with the right attitude and created quite a few chances against a team that don't concede and are very well organised.

"The individuality of one player of Watford made a difference, it was a great goal, but we also had chances and didn't take them.

"If I take a look at our performance I'm very happy with how we played and I'm sure if we can keep this performance level up I've no doubt in the games that are coming up we will get good results.

Watford head coach Vladimir Ivic:

"It wasn't pretty but we did our job in the game.

"We were not able to create a lot but we've said a lot of times, we have a lot of young players who play for the first time in the Championship.

"A lot of players, 19 or 20 years old and we must keep patient with them and work with them to improve some movement, one-on-one, finishing but in this moment this is the best we have."