The Watford head coach had no qualms about giving Yaser Asprilla his full debut against Birmingham City but has cautioned against expecting too much, too soon as the teenager continues to adapt to life in a new country.

Rob Edwards’ decision to start the 18-year-old Colombian raised some eyebrows amid fears about whether he could deal with the physicality of a Championship fixture away from home.

However, Edwards explained he’d already seen enough during Asprilla’s first substitute appearance against Burnley to confirm his belief that the youngster could be trusted and was delighted with how he responded.

“If you think about it when he came on [against Burnley], straight away in that ten, 15 minutes there was just a ‘I don’t care, give me the ball’ and when we haven’t got the ball he’ll go and try and win it back,” said Edwards. “They were starting to press because they were 1-0 down, we were maybe protecting a little bit and also we went down to ten men in that period as well. I worked out pretty quickly then that we could trust him.

“I knew that from before, the training and the pre-season games anyway, but it was great to be able to see that in front of 20,000 people in difficult circumstances. Then I Tuesday night I thought he showed lots of quality, character and just a belief.”

The Hornet boss revealed Asprilla thought Tuesday’s game was a 3pm kick-off because he was so excited to be playing.

Edwards said: “He’s a brilliant young lad and we’re really excited about where he can go. I do have to stress every time I speak about him that we’re going to need to be patient and manage him properly. Expectations will be high and it’s important we don’t put too much pressure on him because he’s a young player in a new country and there’s loads of change for him at the moment.

“Yes, get behind him and support him but I think we’ve got to be careful not to put too much pressure on him as well. We’ve got to allow him to grow and flourish in his natural way.

“I think we’re good at doing this because we’ve seen Joao (Pedro) doing it over the last few years, but that’s going to be really important. We’re going to have to manage him, he’s not going to be able to play every game so everyone needs to understand that as well.”