Watford will be without Ismaila Sarr for the trip to Aston Villa tomorrow evening, after he was injured during the goalless draw with Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday.

The winger is one of a number of players who have impressed under Nigel Pearson, getting two goals and two assists since the head coach's arrival, but will play no part in the midweek game against their relegation rivals.

The 21-year-old left the field with what looked like a hamstring injury at Vicarage Road at the weekend and the club are yet to learn the full extent of the problem.

Speaking ahead of the trip to the midlands, Pearson said he hoped FA Cup games would give the player enough time to recover in time for the next Premier League game against Everton, but admitted he knew little at this stage.

"As far as Ismaila's concerned, we are still waiting to see what the extent of it is, so really I can't give you anything more than that apart from he is not going to be available for tomorrow's game," he said.

"We'll deal with it whatever it is but there's no point me getting ahead of myself in terms of that, but clearly I understand why you're asking the question just because he's been such a positive player for us. After tomorrow's game then this next weekend is FA Cup weekend again so hopefully we'll have him available again for the next Premier League game against Everton, but who knows. We don't know at this moment in time."

Out of the other players on the injury list, Pearson thinks Danny Welbeck is nearest to returning and said he would have to "wait and see" if the striker would be fit for tomorrow evening's game.

The head coach is keen not to rush the striker back too early and instead wants to make sure his return is for the long term when it finally happens.

Elsewhere, Pearson said things were looking increasingly positive for Will Hughes, Kiko Femenia and Tom Cleverley, while returns for Daryl Janmaat and Sebastian Prodl are still too far off to judge.

"Danny Welbeck's getting closer and closer and I think he out of all of them will be the one who I would say would be nearest to being ready for selection," he said.

"Kiko is still making progress but we'll see how it goes. Tom Cleverley is back out on the grass which is good and then as I've been talking about in recent press conferences, both Prodl and Janmaat are still not at the stage where we can start speculating when they'll be rejoining the group.

"Hopefully we'll have Will back soon. He's close now. He is is making progress and we'll have some real competition for places in midfield and it'll be great when they're all back and available.

"During the course of a season what you have to come to terms with very quickly is that you're going to have at any given time players that are not available and, from my own perspective coming in at the time that I did and we'd got key players who we weren't available, it's something very positive to look forward to that that we have players coming back because they'll be great additions to the squad."