Watford 3 Fulham 3

Watford should be celebrating their first Premiership win but after letting a comfortable two-goal lead become a one-goal deficit in a mad final 20 minutes at Vicarage Road they had Ashley Young to thank for ensuring six goals were evenly shared.

Young's opening goal, less than 15 seconds after the restart and following Marlon King's first-half opener, looked to have been sufficient to pick up the points against an ineffective Fulham side, but Chris Coleman's decision to go for broke and introduce Brian McBride and Tomasz Radzinski proved inspired.

McBride reduced the deficit to 2-1 before Heidar Helguson levelled against his former club and then Damien Francis put through his own net to seemingly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory for winless Watford. However, the Golden Boys have already proved they are not easy to beat in the top-flight and they did so once again when Young netted an excellent volley at the death.

After a scrappy but high-tempo opening, the Hornets began to take a grip on proceedings and an incisive counter-attacking move nearly broke the deadlock. Francis and Young dovetailed neatly in midfield to send Tommy Smith free on the right. His cross towards the edge of the penalty area was nodded back to Hameur Bouazza whose left-footed strike was parried by Antti Niemi before the danger was cleared.

However, Fulham had an opening of their own soon after when Papa Bouba Diop's clever pass put Moritz Volz in behind Dan Shittu but the midfielder missed the target after clipping the ball beyond keeper Ben Foster.

But after King had fired narrowly wide from 20 yards, last season's leading Championship scorer made no mistake with his next attempt to give Watford the all-important lead. Bouazza found Young in space around 30 yards from goal and the England Under-21 international delivered a pass to the right side of the area where King got goalside of Franck Queudrue and brought the ball under control before firing it into the ground and past Niemi.

Gavin Mahon and Bouazza, in particular with a drive deflected narrowly wide, might have doubled the home side's advantage before the interval, but it took less than 15 seconds of the second half for number two to arrive as Fulham were caught cold after the restart.

Volz was the visitors' villain, losing the ball to King, who in turn found Mahon. His inch-perfect throughball set Bouazza free on the left side of the area and the French striker squared for Young to slide home.

Coleman wasted no time in reacting to the setback though, making three changes in nine minutes and switching to a three-pronged strikeforce of Helguson, McBride and Radzinski. All three were to make a key impression.

McBride almost set up Helguson for a goal with his first touch, but after 70 minutes he was in the right place to capitalise on the failure of Malky Mackay and Jay DeMerit to deal with a Wayne Routledge cross and cracked a half-volley past Foster.

Watford still looked in control after that setback but with eight minutes remaining they were beaten at their own game. Foster has developed a reputation as a keeper who puts opposition defences under pressure with his long clearances, but on this occasion it was Niemi who launched the ball towards the opposition area, Bouba Diop flicked on, Radzinski did very well to keep the ball in play and hook it back across goal for Helguson to nod home against his old club.

The effect that had on the home side was evidenced by a catalogue of defensive errors four minutes later that led to Francis, under pressure from Helguson, slamming the ball into his own net when attempting to find touch.

But one quality Watford do not lack is character and, if Fulham thought they had successfully come back from the dead, they were given a very rude awakening in the last minute. Jordan Stewart launched a long ball towards the opposition area, Bouba Diop inadvertently flicked the ball across his own area and Young met it with the sweetest of volleys to crash the equaliser past the helpless Niemi.

Golden Boys man of the match: Ashley Young, made the first and bagged a brace to save his side on an extraordinary evening.