Gianfranco Zola is hopeful that “it shouldn’t be long” before he has three players back in full training.

John Eustace has not played since the opening day 3-2 victory at Crystal Palace after having surgery on a back problem, Geoffrey Mujangi-Bia has been sidelined since the Capital One Cup defeat at home to Bradford City at the end of August, while Prince Buaben has yet to feature all season following a complex thigh injury.

Discussing the three players in turn this lunchtime, the Hornets head coach said: “John’s been having treatment and he’s started training on his own. It shouldn’t be long – I don’t know exactly how long but it shouldn’t be long.

“The problem with Prince was the injury was more serious than we thought but he shouldn’t be long as well. It might be a couple of weeks but it’s been a bad injury. He had a tear in the thigh, not only the muscle but also the tendon so it was quite complicated really.”

Turning to Mujangi-Bia, who joined on a season-long loan from Standard Liege, Zola said: “Geoff as well, it was an injury more serious than we thought. We thought it was a simple strain but it was more than that, it was fibres that broke but he’s been back in training [on his own]."

One player who is back at London Colney undergoing treatment though, is Ross Jenkins after his loan spell at Plymouth Argyle was cut short by a groin injury.

The midfielder made an instant impact on his Pilgrims debut by scoring to spark a dramatic comeback as his side came from 2-0 down with less than 20 minutes left to beat Morecambe 3-2.

He played one other game, a 1-1 draw draw at Wycombe Wanderers, but missed the matches either side of that because of the fitness problem.

“He was at Plymouth and was doing quite well," said Zola. "Then he got injured and now he’s back with us because the loan has finished. Now we have to get him back [fit] and then we’ll see.”