Watford are set to face their most difficult challenge yet in the Championship, with away games at Wycombe Wanderers and Barnsley, according to Vladimir Ivic.

The Hornets face the two sides, who are both struggling at the foot of the table, just four days apart but the head coach believes these games will test his side much more than recent clashes against promotion hopefuls Bournemouth and Blackburn.

Speaking ahead of tomorrow evening's visit to Adams Park, Ivic said that Wycombe had been unfortunate and deserved to have more points than they have right now, with the Chairboys yet to get off the mark this campaign.

He urged his players to be focused in order to get three points as they look to try and climb into the automatic promotion spots.

"These are the most difficult games. A lot of times these are tougher games than when you play against [the teams in] first or second," he said. "We must be focused just on this game, we will respect the opponent because we know that they have a good team, they are without points in this moment, but I watched a lot of their games and I know they're a team who play direct football, who fight and work for 95 minutes.

"Some games they deserved more than what they got and for sure it's one tough game. We must be focused and we must be ready from the first until the last second of the game because we want to win.

"For me these types of games are the most difficult type of game and I'm sure my players will understand it, they will be professional like they were in the previous games and they will give their maximum."

In order to get a result, Ivic knows they cannot lose their concentration as he thinks they did in their last game against Bournemouth, when they were pegged back in the 95th minute after leading for most of the match.

They may be buoyed by the return of Andre Gray and Will Hughes, but the head coach still wants them to improve their attacking and their defending at set pieces.

"We lost concentration in the last one or two minutes with the set pieces and it is something that we need to improve," he said. "Against Blackburn we didn't do good set pieces, how we worked in the previous games. The process that you have to do with them and how you work with our set pieces is something we try to repeat.

"Sometimes we can change some players because of the way how the opponents attack, but generally it's a good lesson for all of us because every game is finished when the ref blows the whistle for the last time, so you must keep concentration until the end.

"I believe that with some of the players who will come back now, who can give us more quality in the finishing, we will be better."