Watford are on the verge of announcing the signing of a player after Jonathan Bond followed Lloyd Doyley and put pen to paper on a new contract at Vicarage Road.

The Hornets would not disclose the identity of the player but described him as a “teenage prospect with another Championship club”.

After Doyley signed a one-year deal earlier this week, goalkeeper Bond became the second of the club’s five out of contract players to commit his future to the Hornets by signing up for another three years.

The number of players signing permanent deals is expected to escalate over the coming days, with the futures of the other three who are out of contract – Manuel Almunia, John Eustace and Fitz Hall – still to be finalised, although the midfielder now looks likely to move elsewhere as we revealed earlier this morning.

Watford have also still to announce which of last season’s loan signings from Udinese and Granada will be making their moves permanent. This means the Hornets are set to fly to Italy on Sunday for the start of their two-week pre-season training camp with a number of players yet to sign contracts.

It was originally thought the Hornets would return to London Colney before going to Italy but the club have confirmed this will not be the case.

Watford have been strongly linked with several players this month, the latest of which is Real Madrid B forward Javier Acuña.

The 25-year-old Paraguayan joined Los Blancos in 2008 but has spent the last two seasons on loan in the Spanish second division with Girona.

He helped the Spanish side to a fourth place finish with 16 league goals but it wasn’t enough to seal promotion to La Liga after they suffered a play-off final defeat to Almeria.

According to reports in Spain, a deal for Acuña is close to being completed.

The Hornets will again look to make use of the ‘Pozzo family’ and four players from Udinese have been consistently mentioned as possible transfers – Italian Under-21 right-back Marco Davide Faraoni, centre-half Gabriele Angella, attacking midfielder Diego Fabbrini and striker Mathias Ranegie.