The injury problems that have plagued Watford this season are well documented, but it also feels like modern football generally is more blighted by players being sidelined more often, and for longer periods.

Which begs the question why is that . . . and do 21st century footballers have a lower pain threshold?

“It’s the million-dollar question and I think about that a lot,” admitted Bilic.

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“Injuries aren’t just something that affect your job a bit, it is the main thing. It’s not number two on the list, or number three or number seven. It’s number one on the list.

“If you don’t have the players available your chances can go so low. It is an area that currently I am spending a lot of time talking about, thinking about, reading about, comparing situations.

“Nobody knows the answer to that question and sometimes I feel that nowadays we are walking on eggshells. The pain threshold today seems to be at the bottom.”

Bilic said the combination of the number of injuries, and the combined time players are out, is a problem.

“It is very frustrating firstly to have players out injured. Secondly we have players out for a long time,” he said.

“Then we have situations where I’m told ‘he can shoot with his right foot but don’t let him shoot with his left foot’. How can you play football like that?!

“But to be fair we now have really good people in the positions to help with this, and we are not wanting to have a list of players on a Friday who are fit to play but haven’t trained all week. No, we are attempting to have players fit to play who have trained as well.

“There is a little bit of an element of luck about injuries. What I don’t believe is when I hear it said that we didn’t do a lot in pre-season. I don’t buy that. Pre-season was about 20 games ago and there has been time and training since then to overcome what maybe you didn’t do in pre-season.

“With some players their pain threshold is low and we have to push them, but injuries are real.”