Watford head coach Nigel Pearson believes it is difficult for his players to perform at their best in front of empty stadiums, without the "emotional attachment" they have with the fans.

The Hornets boss likened the members of his team to actors going from live stage performances to all of a sudden having to muster the same energy on a television set and said that, although he felt his players had adapted well to their new surroundings, it is something they are still not entirely used to.

"I suppose the only analogy I could give you would be actors who enjoy acting live on stage compared to the sterile environment of doing a TV sitcom in front of a camera but with nobody there," he said. "Our players aren't used to not performing in front of their fans and the emotional attachment and the noise and the cheers and the boos and everything else. We're asking people to work in a way which is very alien to us but still give the levels of performance that everybody expects.

"It's very easy to sit there and be critical, but I also understand the difficulties. I think the players have embraced the challenge very very positively and we'll all continue to work together to achieve what we're setting out to do. It won't be easy, but that's the plan. Crack on with it."

After what he felt was an acceptable performance in the first game back against Leicester, Pearson is all too aware that improvement is still needed for his side to avoid relegation without needing help from others.

A dip in form came in the three following games, before the Hornets eventually found their first win of the restart against Norwich City on Tuesday.

While the environment in which football is played in has changed, the Watford head coach also knows his job is fundamentally still the same as it was before.

"We did alright in the first week, didn't we?" he said. "I thought we played alright against Leicester. I know it's a last gasp equaliser, but I thought we did alright. We were fine in the build up, but we've just not been able to get over the line in games. The second half performance at Burnley was very very good, but that's the half we conceded in.

"Football's just a strange old thing to try and decipher at times. We are, we have been, and we'll continue to work hard to try and achieve the results that we need. My time to reflect on the entirety will be at the end of it, but on a daily and weekly basis, we're just trying to find the answers as we go along to questions that are a little bit different to normal just because circumstances are that little bit different. The centre of it always is getting the team prepared and making sure that we give ourselves the best chance."