Javi Gracia is happy with the group of players Watford have assembled and accepts his task now is to build them into a “good team”.

The Hornets have been busy in the transfer window and made six new signings – Ben Foster, Adam Masina, Marc Navarro, Ben Wilmot and Ken Sema while Gerard Deulofeu made last season’s loan move from Barcelona permanent – and the head coach is pleased with how they have settled into their new environment.

“They have adapted very quickly,” he said in an interview on Watford’s YouTube channel, “you can see from the first day speaking altogether. I am happy with the group of players we have now. We need to build up from there a good team.”

Watford have been back in pre-season training since the start of this month and Gracia acknowledges this period before the new Premier League campaign gets under way is precious, in so many respects as they gear up to face Brighton & Hove Albion on August 11 and the 10 months ahead.

He said: “Now is our time. When you start to play everything is going very fast and sometimes you don’t have enough time to improve many things.

“Now we have time and we want to take advantage. Now is the moment to show the players what is the most important and to implement good values, knowing what is the most important and try to show them why some things will be important in the future.”

The next stage in the build-up to the new campaign is a training camp in Austria next week and it is a period Gracia feels will be of significant benefit for him and his players.

He said: “To stay in Austria will be very good for us because we can spend more time together. I think in this period we can feel something different.

“OK, we can work hard and we can do it as well here in Watford, but in this situation I think you can spend more time together and create some situations differently than we have here.”

The Hornets their first two friendlies while in Austria – against FC Koln and Fortuna Dusseldorf – but the results of these games are a secondary consideration.

“The results are always important but in this period for me they are not important,” the Hornets boss admitted. “There are a lot of things more important than the result - to accumulate time of play, to see new players with the others, try to avoid injuries are our targets in the next games.”