Much was made before and particularly after Saturday’s draw with Wigan that the visitors' players had not been paid by the club.

It’s not the first time it has happened, and their manager Shaun Maloney was flying out to Bahrain to meet the club’s owner immediately after leaving Vicarage Road.

Since then, the Latics have been fined three points for the payment issue.

However, while supportive of the club’s plight, Watford head coach Chris Wilder drew on personal experience to point out that sympathy should perhaps be directed to other parts of the club, not the dressing room.

“Players do get paid. I know that because I’ve been in that position,” he said.

“The people that suffer are those who sit outside the bubble of the PFA: the people in the ticket office, the people in the canteen, those sort of people.

“I had that for six months and the team got promoted, and got 99 points. So it’s not an excuse.

“I do think it tightens you up a bit more as a group.

“I know what’s gone off at Wigan, but I’ve got to say I thought my players gave everything. They had a right go and left everything out on the pitch. They wanted to get a winner.

“The game became open towards the end because of my decisions, nobody else’s. I didn’t want to sit in, I wanted to go and get a winner.

“We should have that attitude and I want them to have that attitude. That’s why we went 4-2-4 at the death.

“We just ran out of legs and made some bad decisions at the end.”

Wilder went on to say that having gone a goal behind, Wigan didn’t fold and he praised the way they battled back into the game after half time.

“In a way, I want to give credit to Wigan because they had a right go,” he said.

“With what’s going off at the club, for their players and manager to do what they’ve done I’ve got to give them a right load of credit.

“They could have got the white flag out after 45 minutes when they were on the ropes. But they didn’t.

“Shaun is a talented coach and everyone knows what’s done. He had a difficult time at Hibs and then took a job on at his old club.

“I thought they played well in possession and they have some good, tidy players.

“On the other part (game management), I am very sympathetic to referees because they are being put into really poor positions.

“Referees are not there to make it easy for any side, they are there to manage the game and the players, and also manage the event. It’s £25 or £30 a pop for a ticket. They have an obligation to manage this as a game of football as an event.

“I don’t really know what they do. Does he book somebody after five minutes? Where does it go?

“If a boy goes down with a head injury and the referee runs down the other end of the pitch and then something happens, you know that isn’t just going to make the back pages it’s going to make the front pages.”