Slavisa Jokanovic has warned Watford’s players they risk paying a very expensive price if they relax for a single moment during the final weeks of the fight for promotion.

This season’s race to the Premier League is the closest in recent memory. Bournemouth lead the Championship by a solitary point and Norwich City are only in the top two ahead of the Hornets due to a single goal.

And amazingly fourth-place Middlesbrough would go top tonight (Friday) if they beat Norwich in a game which could do more to shape the final top-two standings than any other during the run-in if the teams continue their remarkable consistency in their final matches.

The top three have only lost two out of their last 30 games between them, with Watford slipping up against Ipswich Town and the Canaries also losing at home to Wigan Athletic. All three sides have recorded victories in seven of their last ten matches.

Norwich have won 14 of Alex Neil’s 19 league games in charge following his arrival on January 9. Watford have secured 13 victories during that time and have won 17 of their last 24 matches, having lost the previous four games in November. Bournemouth have won ten of their last 19 and Boro have secured 12 maximums during the same period.

The pressure is certainly on all of the teams. The two successful sides will secure the reported £120 millon that comes with Premier League football. The others have to settle for the so-called ‘lottery’ of the play-offs.

So how are the Watford players? Are they nervous? Relaxed?

“It is not a moment to be relaxed,” Jokanovic responded when asked prior to the Nottingham Forest game. “There is no space to be arrogant and no space not to arrive at games with humility and we have to try to find the best performance.

“We have had 42 games (now 43) and this is not the moment to relax; it is the time to move a step up and we have to concentrate, arrive to games with confidence and be ready for what we must do in the game. This is what I expect my team to do.

“If you relax in one moment then you can pay a very expensive price.”

It is widely accepted that Watford will almost certainly need to win all three of their remaining fixtures to pip Norwich, Middlesbrough and Bournemouth to an automatic place.

But Jokanovic is one of those managers, well head coaches, that subscribe to the ‘one game at a time’ philosophy and it is not just management speak when it comes to the Serbian. He means it.

He said: “I am not thinking about three wins. I am only thinking about one win against Birmingham. After that I can prepare for the next games.

“I do not try to do the mathematics [on how many points are needed]. It is normal that I am looking at the Championship table but I am only focused on what is in front of us, that is it.

“I am not thinking about taking nine points. I am only thinking about three against Birmingham.”

Tomorrow’s (Saturday’s) opponents Birmingham City inflicted the first defeat of Jokanovic’s reign and it was the start of the four-match losing run. But Jokanovic dismissed the poor showing would provide additional motivation for his players, saying: “I must find calm from my team. If we are not motivated now then I don’t know when they will ever be motivated.

“We must arrive with a clear mind and be ready to fight in the next game.”

Jokanovic, with tongue firmly in his cheek, described his social life as very poor but still claimed he would be opting for Sky Movies rather than Sky Sports when Norwich and Boro face off tonight in a potentially season-defining fixture for all of the promotion chasers. It is out of his control so what is the point, was his logic.

Watford could have gone into the top two by scoring an extra goal during the victories over Millwall and Nottingham Forest in the last week but the head coach had previously stated goal difference would not influence his tactics heading into the remaining fixtures; not until the final week of the season. The three points are the focus. The winning margin is secondary.

“We have to play with confidence and patience. It is a simple objective; you have to find a way to win the game and then it is about scoring more goals,” Jokanovic said on Tuesday.

On trying to deal with the pressure, Jokanovic said: “They can follow me; I don’t read much and I don’t watch the TV because if I look too much at the teams around us then I could become confused. I try to concentrate on what is our target and try to do a better job. Many things are still in our hands.”

He added: “We have arrived in a privileged position to be able to fight for promotion to the Premier League and we need to be positive and we must believe in the possibility [of promotion].”