There is a misconception among some Watford fans that Lloyd Dyer was a hugely disruptive influence during his time at Vicarage Road but Troy Deeney wants to put the record straight.

Dyer turned down a one-year contract extension with Premier League club Leicester City last summer in favour of signing a three-year deal with the Hornets.

He was signed with a view to being a first team regular in a 4-3-3 system but the team's failure to adapt to the formation saw then head coach Beppe Sannino revert back to the traditional 3-5-2 in pre-season.

It was the right move for the Golden Boys but it resulted in Dyer only starting six times in the opening 30 games in all competition - despite scoring three goals in his first five outings.

It is believed Dyer, who had been one of the Championship's best wingers in the previous two seasons, was given assurances he would play regularly following his arrival and his frustration at a lack of game time boiled over when he came off the bench at Rotherham United on August 19.

Nine minutes after coming on midway through the second half he scored his second goal in four matches and ran halfway across the pitch to shout angrily at Sannino.

The reaction came at a time when a host of players were becoming increasingly annoyed at the training methods of Sannino - a factor which would contribute to the Italian's departure less than two weeks later.

But whilst many of his team-mates and Sannino himself had no issue with Dyer's reaction at the New York Stadium, it angered a section of the club's support who have held it against the 32-year-old since.

Deeney said: "You have to remember that he came in from a team where he played most of the games at Leicester.

"We told him he was going to be playing and he didn’t kick up a fuss even when he wasn’t starting because he said ‘3-5-2 is not really my formation and Ikechi (Anya) is probably better than me in that formation. Fair enough'.

"He never kicked up a fuss but the problem came when we went to 4-3-3, Ikechi had not trained all week and everyone thought Lloyd would be in the team and Ikechi came in [to the starting XI] after doing one day of training.

"That isn’t Ikechi’s fault but that is a management issue and the way you manage players. That is why when Lloyd came on and scored you could sense something would happen.

"The way he did it is kind of funny when you look back but it was a moment where you looked at it from the inside and said ‘fair play to you’ and that is what I thought.

"I didn’t see anything wrong with it and even Beppe in private said I’m glad he did that because I don’t want him to be happy on the bench."

Sannino was superseded by Oscar Garcia temporarily before the Spaniard suffered health problems and it seemed his replacement, Billy McKinlay, would be the ideal appointment for Dyer, who started the Scot's first two games in charge.

But they were to be McKinlay's only matches as Watford head coach. Dyer became even more of a bit-part player under Slavisa Jokanovic, featuring in three of the Serbian's opening nine fixtures, starting just once.

So when Dyer was spotted on the TV cameras speaking to Jokanovic after not being involved at Fulham in December, a group of supporters made the assumption it was another case of the winger showing dissent.

But all of the substitutes have to take part in a fitness routine after each match and Deeney said: "At the Fulham game all he said to the gaffer was ‘do you want me to run now or come in and listen to what needs to be said?’

"But people saw him speaking to the gaffer and thought he was complaining about not getting on. All he asked was are they running now or later?

"It is people’s perception of things and there are a lot more dangerous people about when it comes to the harmony for a squad than Lloyd Dyer."

Dyer was one of five senior players Jokanovic stopped training with the first team in December and the quintet all left for other clubs in the coming weeks.

There were different reasons for each player but according to Deeney fans wrongly assumed he was one of the players Jokanovic was referring to when he said some of the five were not fully committed to the club.

Deeney said: "He never kicked up a problem once. That was the frustrating thing [with the fans' reaction]. Obviously as captain I have to be mediator and I couldn’t come out and defend every person because if I came out and defended Lloyd then it looks like I’m going against the gaffer so I stayed out of the way.

"But when I see people on Twitter saying ‘Lloydy is a bad apple’ then I want to say ‘are you serious? This guy is 32 and when have you ever heard anything negative about him?'

"He is not a bad egg but he wanted to play. If there are people here who are happy not playing then would you not want somebody who wants to play? I was confused [with the fans’ reaction] in that sense.

"To be fair to Lloydy I remember a time where he hadn’t started for three or four months and it looked like he might have started and it materialised that he didn’t so he was a little disappointed and trained accordingly.

"But he phoned me on the way home and said ‘Troy I’m sorry I did that.’ I was like ‘bro, I don’t even know what you are talking about’.

"He said ‘I didn’t put 100 per cent into training and that was poor from me’. He had had a tough couple of months and if it had been me then I might have done it earlier.

"He said ‘that won’t happen again’ and that showed what he was like. For him to say ‘that is not me’ says a lot about the guy."

Dyer spent the second half of this season on loan at Birmingham City but still has two years left on his Golden Boys deal.

And Deeney added: "I wouldn’t be surprised if he comes back in the summer and is involved because I know him as a person and how he works and he would fit in with the current head coach. I also think we might change formation next season so we will see."

Deeney also defended the character of midfielder Keith Andrews. The former Republic of Ireland international was another of the five players to stop training with the first team in December after falling out with Jokanovic.

Andrews had been a positive influence in the dressing room during his brief time at the club but claimed he was left out of the squad on a couple of occasions for unknown reasons.

Watford Observer:

Jokanovic later clarified it was because of the rule limiting the number of loan players allowed in the 18-man squad due to Adlene Guedioura joining the club.

Andrews eventually joined his former side MK Dons as a player-coach and the 34-year-old looks set to remain there in a coaching capacity when his Bolton Wanderers contract expires.

Deeney, who was made captain last summer, said: "I know a lot of people gave him stick but Keith Andrews was very good because [he made sure] the problem was only between him and the management.

"He would still come into the dressing room and say 'are the players on it?' and 'are they doing this?' and 'did you notice that?'. He gave me pointers and he has been around for a long time and knows what's what.

"Keith and I got on really well so for him to help me out was massive."

Jokanovic ended up unifying the dressing room but for a while his relationship with some of the players was strained - not helped by the Serbian losing four consecutive matches early into his reign.

Deeney has since admitted that he also metaphorically 'butted heads' with Jokanovic at the start but was won around.

And the 26-year-old insisted it wasn't difficult to keep the squad unified in late-2014 despite five of the senior players not training with the first team.

Deeney said: "In terms of keeping the dressing room together it was pretty easy because in their minds it was 'us versus them' so they never had a problem with the players, they had a problem with the staff and how they went about things. It wasn't about things like 'Troy is playing instead of me when I should be starting'.

"So when they came into the dressing room it was 'yes I know you have your problems' but if they moaned about it, it was a case of saying ‘shut up now and go’ because we squashed it as quickly as possible."

He continued: "There were five people that went out on loan in a group of 25 or 30 so it wasn't like 15 of them coming in moaning so it was a case of making sure the guys who weren't happy didn't influence the ones who weren't sure.

“You had some that went with whatever happened, some were waiting to see how the game played out and there were some who just said no.

“So if they started trying to bring players over to that side then I would have to say 'if you have a problem then deal with it on your own rather than targeting people that might listen to you' so that was the only negative on that front.

"In general it was pretty cool and there were not many problems."

But that wasn't the case a few months before the merry-go-round which ended up with Jokanovic in the Vicarage Road hot-seat.

The relationship between Sannino and the players had deteriorated and it wasn't just the players' morale that was a problem. The club were also unhappy with his long, low-intensity training sessions and managerial style.

When Deeney was asked if it was a difficult time for the players, he replied: "Yes. There were problems all the time but it is difficult because he is very old school and football has developed a lot over that time.

“The principles are still the same in terms of having to run and having to tackle and all that but there are methods and types of training you now do.

“A lot of his methods were long and drawn out and after a while it became very boring. That was when the problems came in but like I have said before, I’m more of the old school in the sense that I get told what to do and I do it."