Matej Vydra knows how painful defeat in the Championship Play-Offs can be so it is little wonder the Watford striker is determined to help the Hornets finish in the top two this season.

The Czech Republic international was part of the Golden Boys squad which agonisingly missed out on promotion to the Premier League under Gianfranco Zola at the end of the 2012/2013 campaign.

Watford were beaten in the Play-Off final at Wembley by Crystal Palace that season and Vydra says he wants to avoid that potential heartbreak this time around.

“In the first year I was here we tried to go up and we were so close,” the 22-year-old said. “This year I came here to help the team go up and again we are so close.

“We know how difficult the Play-Offs can be so we want to finish in the top two this time.”

The race for promotion to the Premier League this season is the closest it has been for years. Many a fan is attempting to predict results and work out how the Championship table will look come 3pm on Saturday, May 2.

While Watford’s players are keeping a close eye on their fellow promotion challengers’ results, they know a top-two finish is in their hands.

“We are not looking at the other teams much,” Vydra said “We are only looking at ourselves. It is a case of step-by-step. Now we have to keep winning.”

Tuesday night’s battling victory at Wigan Athletic moved Slavisa Jokanovic’s side to the summit of the division on goal difference. They have 72 points, the same total a Middlesbrough.

The Hornets’ next three matches could define their season. They welcome seventh-placed Ipswich Town to Vicarage Road tomorrow, travel to fourth in the table Derby County on Good Friday before taking on Middlesbrough on Easter Monday at Vicarage Road.

“They will be three of the toughest games we will have,” Hornets defender Craig Cathcart admitted last week.

“We are obviously looking forward to those games but, to be honest, we are taking every team we face seriously, the Championship has shown many times before that anyone can beat anyone.

“Every game is like a cup final for us from now until the end of the season and we must just concentrate on each one at a time.

“We are not going to win every game, as players we understand that. So you can’t get too high when you win and you can’t get too low when you don’t.

“In recent weeks we have won games though that we may have lost at the start of the season. We are grinding out wins now which is important.

“At this stage of the seasons all that matters is the result.”

If the Hornets do achieve promotion this season they will achieve the goal the Pozzo family set when they purchased Watford in the summer of 2012.

And, if the Golden Boys are in the top flight next season, the club have ensured the players have all they need to remain there.

Ben Watson, who joined the Hornets in January from Wigan Athletic, has been impressed by the facilities at the club’s London Colney training ground.

He said: “The club has the ingredients to be a Premier League club and it is a club with ambition. Everyone involved with Watford wants to be in the Premier League.

"Here at the training ground, the canteen, the food, the pitches and the gym is all geared to being a Premier League club.

“So in these last few games we must give it one more big push and get us over the line.”