It wasn’t just the sublime finish that made Tom Ince’s first goal for Watford a bit special, it was the move that led up to it as well.

And there were scarcely three minutes on the clock when the winger put the Hornets ahead against West Brom last night.

James Morris set Matheus Martins marauding away down the left, he checked inside and then pushed the ball across the edge of the box to Ismael Kone.

The midfielder took a touch and then moved it further right, where Imran Louza cushioned a first-time ball into the path of Ince, who had drifted out to the right of the area.

He strode onto it and curled a first-time left-footed effort that arced into the top corner.

“Imran Louza rolled the ball to me and it had a nice bit of pace on it and I thought that if I hit it first time I would be able to get it up and down,” said Ince.

“As soon as it left my foot, I knew that it had half a chance, and to see it nestle in the net was nice. I can build confidence from that. It’s been a tough few months.

“I haven’t really been able to have a good pre-season. I’ve been training on my own, trying to get fit – I didn’t have any pre-season games so I’m slowly trying to bring myself up to where I want to be.

“For me, I want to do that in the league. There are no more pre-season matches so I’m slowly getting there and it was nice to get my first goal for the club.”

Ince said again that he wants to offer as much as he can, both on and off the pitch.

“The boss knows what I can bring, having played in the Championship over the years,” the winger explained.

“I’m an experienced player now and I play on the right-hand side, I’m left-footed and I cut inside, get shots off and get crosses in while trying to create and bring a bit of experience into the team.

“We have a young squad with a lot of players who haven’t played a lot at this level for a lot of seasons. I’m trying to bring a mix of everything, but most importantly I’m trying to perform and work hard for this team, trying to accumulate more points consistently.”

Looking back on the draw, Ince echoed what his manager and most Watford fans would have been saying after the game.

“I thought we had some good chances in both halves and I’m disappointed to see the goals we conceded,” he said.

“We made a few mistakes in possession of the ball, and it was an end-to-end game towards the end. We were pushing and trying to get the win. They were trying to hang on and catch us on the counter-attack.

“It was an exciting game in the end between two good teams, but we’re disappointed because we wanted to come away with three points after the confidence boost from Saturday’s win against Birmingham.

“We had some good chances and their goalkeeper made some great saves, and Dan Bachmann made a great stop as well. We were the ones pushing and trying to get a winner.

“We are bitterly disappointed because we wanted to build on the result from Saturday, but it’s a point, we don’t walk away with nothing.”