Watford won a fourth successive league game for the first time since October 2007 after beating Portsmouth yesterday, but they also achieved something no Hornets team has managed for 26 years.

The goals scored by Andrew Taylor, Marvin Sordell and Danny Graham took Watford’s tally to 45, making them the joint highest scorers in the Championship with Leeds United.

No Hornets side has found the back of the net that many times in the opening 23 league games since Graham Taylor’s class of 1984/85 reached that number on New Year’s Day, 1985, with a 1-1 draw against Liverpool at Vicarage Road.

In that 40-game season, Watford went on to finish with a total of 81 goals - a number that has not been eclipsed since - but if Malky Mackay’s team can maintain their current average of almost two goals per match they are on track to score 90.

Watford head to Scunthorpe United tomorrow five points better off than they had mustered at the halfway point of last season. Indeed, it took last season’s team another six matches to surpass the 36-point mark.

But it is the goals scored column where the most significant improvement has been made compared to the same stage of the campaign 12 months ago.

The recent sequence of 13 goals in four games – with Watford hitting the net at least three times in that number of consecutive league matches for the first time since the promotion-winning 2005/06 season – has enabled Mackay’s men to score 14 more than after 23 matches in the 2009/10 campaign. In fact, it took last season’s team until the 35th league fixture to hit their 45th goal.