Matej Vydra may have got the headlines for his match-winning two-goal burst in as many minutes against Brighton & Hove Albion but Gianfranco Zola was delighted with the striker’s all-round contribution.

After a David Lopez penalty had cancelled out Troy Deeney’s opener, the Czech international fired the Hornets back in front with a shot that deflected off Adam El-Abd over Tomasz Kuszczak before showing superb acceleration and composure to round off an excellent three-pass counter-attack and score his 12th of the campaign and make it 3-1 to his side

“Matej is a player that has got a lot of quality and you can see when he gets in front of the goalkeeper he rarely misses the chance. That is something not many have,” said Gianfranco Zola of what is fast becoming the forward’s trademark ability to capitalise on one-against-one scoring situations.

“But what I liked about him today was the way he worked for the team as well. We know Matej can score goals but what we’ve found out is how effective he can be working for the team. He was doubling up all the time on their sitting midfielder, (Liam) Bridcutt, who is a very important player for them. He worked so hard and he was excellent.

“I think he has matured a lot,” Zola continued. “He knows there are good players behind him. He knows the competition is tough because (Fernando) Forestieri is another excellent player, he’s done fantastic for us, so he knows that he has to raise his game if he wants to be more regular on the pitch and I like it because it means the boy has got the desire. When you create those kind of situations it’s good for the team because it pushes everyone hard."