The number of casualties in the Watford squad is so bad head coach Walter Mazzarri produced an actual injury list at the start of this afternoon's press conference.

His message was clear - the squad is stretched to the limit with as many as ten players ruled out of Sunday's home clash against Tottenham Hotspur.

Mazzarri reeled off the names as if announcing his first team. Unfortunately these were all players currently unavailable as he faces the biggest test of his tenure at Vicarage Road.

The Italian said: “About the injured players aside from Valon Behrami and Daryl Janmaat, we will also have missing for the next game and probably some of the others as well Roberto Pereyra, Isaac Success, Miguel Britos is of course suspended, Adrian Mariappa, Ben Watson, Stefano Okaka and maybe Craig Cathcart.”

The Hornets will have to manage without Nordin Amrabat and Adlene Guedioura from after the Stoke game on Tuesday due to their involvement in the Africa Cup of Nations for Morocco and Algeria respectively.

Mazzarri also admits he is grateful the pair can play in the next two matches otherwise he would have struggled to fill his team.

The Watford boss said: “We did everything possible we could for Amrabat and Guedioura to play both games and go to the Africa Cup of Nations immediately after.

"If on top of everything, we also missed them then it would have been very difficult to find 11 players to play.

“Also it’s very difficult to say in this moment how things will go, because Stoke will have two days of rest before our game and we will only have one and we don’t know what players we will have available after the Spurs game.”