The Watford boss believes the 3-1 win at Brighton & Hove Albion is “one of the best” away victories of the season.

The Hornets strengthened their grip on sixth place with their sixth win on the road thanks to two quick-fire Matej Vydra goals to take his tally for the season to 12 after a David Lopez penalty had cancelled out Troy Deeney’s second-half opener.

Gianfranco Zola said: “I think this is certainly one of the best ones [away wins], not only for the result but the way we played. Considering also the value of the opposition, I think it was an excellent performance.”

Looking back on the game, the Hornets’ head coach rermarked: “I thought in the first 15 minutes they created a lot of problems for us because obviously they are a quality team, the move the ball quite well on the pitch but they just didn’t manage to get the goal they needed.

“After that, we found better measures on the pitch. We managed to get on top of them with a little bit more speed and balance because in the beginning, with the switch of play, we couldn’t shuffle over quick enough to the other side and stop them. Once we dealt with that our quality, the passing came through and came out and that was the turning point. As soon as we got our midfielders on to the ball, passing the ball with more consistency the game completely changed and I think that’s what made the difference.”