Roy Hodgson admits he will not have much chance to work with his side between now and their game at Liverpool, despite the fact the game is almost three weeks away.

After picking up a valuable win away at Southampton, the onus is now on the Hornets to build on that performance, as they look to survive relegation this season.

However, Everton's involvement in the FA Cup means Hodgson's men have a rare week off, ahead of the international break and the manager fears that he may only have one training session with his full squad between now and the match at Anfield, due to his players' involvement with their respective national teams.

"It's not good for us for the simple reason that we don't have many players," said Hodgson. "It would have been great and Ray and I would have been turning cartwheels at the thought we could have three weeks now with the team without a game to really work on what we're trying to do and to try and improve aspects of the play that we think can be improved. We'd have been delighted.

"But the squad is all going away to far flung corners of the world and we won't see them again until two days before we play at Liverpool.

"They'll come back, if we're lucky, they'll do one session with us on the Thursday and then it'll be on a coach to go to a hotel on the Friday after, so that's the disappointing aspect, to have so many players away."

With some of those players travelling for international duty not regular starters for their national teams, Hodgson fears the break could have a detrimental effect on their fitness.

"I fear there's always going to be the risk that because some of those, or most of those players that are going away aren't actually regulars in our team, they're not going to be regulars necessarily in their national team," he continued. "So they're not even going to get the the level of physical activity I would like because as a national team coach, you do concentrate on your starting 11 more than all your substitutes."

One of those who could still play for his national team this month is Ismaila Sarr, with Senegal set for World Cup play-off matches against Egypt.

The winger is still recovering from a hamstring injury, but if he is declared fit in time, Hodgson said the club would be unable to prevent him from taking part in the matches, even if it puts him at risk of missing more games for Watford.

"He's getting fitter," said Hodgson. "When I say getting fitter, he hasn't trained with the team, but I saw him doing some sort of running the other day. It was very controlled because it's a hamstring injury.

"I don't really know when he'll be passed fit to go out on the field and and train properly, but there's a big risk of course that that will happen before Senegal call and ask him to meet up and, if they do that, then we are obliged to let him go, which is another minor disappointment.

"It would have been nice if we could have had him with us, but we're not going to cheat. If he's fit, we will tell them he's fit and it'll be up to them to decide whether they are going to call him up. But it'd be a bit risky for us.

"If he stays with us, we can control his training, but if he goes to his national team, the chances of aggravating the injury is a bit greater."