We’ve arrived at yet another yawning gap in the Premier League’s leisurely schedule. It feels like the international breaks have come thick and fast so far this season.

So far, they’ve been an annoyance – there’s not really all that much to take stock of in the first week of September for example – but this time we’re a dozen games in so we can start to measure up just how far we’ve come since August.

Before that first kick off at Goodison Park, bathed as it was in Merseyside sun, we all had that sense of cautious optimism. Before a ball is kicked anything is possible.

The usual ‘this could be our year’ mantra on rotation in stadia before the first Championship fixture was replaced by a slightly more subdued ‘we could manage mid-table’. Not the most exciting ambition, but ambitious it certainly seemed on day one.

And as it went that day we performed valiantly. Twice going ahead against a fairly fancied Everton team, ending up with just a single point thanks to an out-of-character (at the time, anyway) performance from one Arouna Koné.

Perhaps valiant is actually the wrong way to describe that first performance. It does the squad an injustice – we just didn’t really know it at the time. The truth is we looked comfortable. That Watford team looked like it was playing at the right level.

Troy Deeney was his usual bullish self despite better opposition. Craig Cathcart was cooler than Marco Cassetti ever has been and the new recruits – particularly that central double-pivot of Etienne Capoue and Valon Behrami – were a joy to watch. All to a man in their element in the top flight.

And this performance was backed up by solid if unspectacular goalless draws at home to West Brom and Southampton. We were building from the back, slowly getting better and more relaxed about our big-time status.

As well as this, we were and are a team with a plan. Which is more vital than it ever was in the Championship. Even if you might not agree with Quique Sanchez Flores’ approach all the time, by God does he know what he wants.

So, after an initial day of positivity at Goodison – which, let’s face it, would have probably been a bit of a party even if we’d lost – I’d suggest that the 11 games that have followed have all been a part of an upward curve.

Yes, we have had issues up front but our reliance on Odion Ighalo for goals is dissipating with Messrs Deeney and Abdi now happily chipping in.

And yes, we’ve had our first and second proper ‘Gomes moments’ since the big Brazilian rocked up at Vicarage Road last week at Leicester. But these mistakes will hopefully stand out as blips over the course of this season. We all know what he’s capable of, after all.

We’re now sat in mid-table obscurity. We dared to dream on the way up to Liverpool, on our way down Bullens Road on the opening day of the season. We dreamt that we might grace the early teens, or even 12th or 11th place – and right now that dream is a reality.

As much as I like the busier fixture list of the Championship, the cheaper tickets, the lack of pomp surrounding every single match…if we are relegated next May, the season will have been a failure.

Survival is key in any first season in Premier League. It’s a given. Anything else beyond that is a huge positive to be taken into next season.

For Watford, survival is a feat that’s never been achieved in the Premier League. So it’s that much more important to us.

And that’s where we are. We are 11th in the league. The Premier League. We’re there on merit too, almost a third of the way through the season.

Five points off Europe; eight points off relegation. Bizarrely, five points above current league champions Chelsea.

We’ve won four, drawn four, and lost four. We are so mid-table right now. And I love it.