Watford's head of football business Ross Wilson has provided an insight into the “plate-spinning” nature of bringing loan players to the club.

Wilson, who joined the club from Falkirk in the summer, heads up the Hornets’ recruitment department and is the man who leads negotiations with other clubs.

Speaking to the Watford Observer, Wilson said: “The recruitment team are out probably covering 20 games a week on average.

“All their reports come in and then we will begin to track individual players. They will then slot into the six-stage process.

“Then when Sean (Dyche) says ‘right we need a centre forward’ there will be a list of players the scouts have identified that will be high up in priority and the backroom staff will discuss the list and say ‘we will take player X and Y’.

"Then there may be another one or two names which come in, and those names will be watched as well – rather than just fly in from left field when you need to make things happen.”

He continued: “When we try to sign a player, we normally have offers in for two or three and are talking to two or three agents – it is like trying to keep plates spinning and you attempt to make one of them happen.”

The club’s detailed six-stage process to recruitment was set up by Wilson’s predecessor John Stephenson, who left for Brighton & Hove Albion earlier this year and is now at Swansea City.

Wilson has continued to use the system, which he described as “excellent”, but has now adapted the recruitment process.

Previously there was one chief scout who reported to Stephenson but Wilson now has three senior scouts feeding him information.

Brian Greenhalgh is still at the club and the other two senior scouts are former Scunthorpe United chief scout Lee Turnbull and Allan Fraser, who followed Wilson from Falkirk.

The club has also employed several regional scouts this summer and promoted former intern Josh Andall to recruitment analysis, following Chris Baker’s departure to Brighton.

Wilson said: “I have been really happy with the way the structure has been set up and how everyone has taken it forward.

“Hopefully by the time we get to next summer, we will be in a good place and prepared.”

Within the club, Wilson secured the futures of several first team players during the summer and stated contract talks are always ongoing.

He said: “There will be one or two that we will not be speaking to at the moment, simply because Sean has not indicated that he wants it to happen at this stage.

“There are young ones that me and Nick [Cox, head of Academy] are speaking to to extend their time at the club.

“It is always ongoing.

“It is about where we are now, where we want to be looking ahead and how we are going to get there.”