Wednesday’s draw with West Brom was the first time Mileta Rajovic has started for Watford and not scored, but his runs and movement perhaps warranted better service from his teammates.

The big Danish striker was regularly bursting between the centre halves or peeling off them when the ball was wide, but his teammates appeared not to spot it.

His head coach Valerien Ismale is urging him to keep doing it.

“He has the quality and we believe in him,” he said.

“It’s all about him adapting to his teammates, and them adapting to him. He also has to adapt to the Championship.

“We will work with him, and that’s my job to improve players. We will improve him. That is a big part of our philosophy.

“Don’t forget he has scored three goals in his first three games. That means opponents will be aware of him, and maybe they will pay him special attention.

“That might make it more difficult for him to come to the ball in the box, so now he needs to work even harder to be free in the box.

“It’s a normal process you go through with a striker.

“If tomorrow we were playing against Man City and Haaland, then you know that in the box our centre backs will be very concentrated and more focussed on him than maybe on other players.

“It’s the same for Rajovic. He’s in the Championship, he made an impact straight away and now he has to find a way to be free in the box.”

One player who had a difficult evening on Wednesday was defender Jeremy Ngakia, whose error led to the free kick that brought Albion level – a moment that then seemed to effect him.

“I think that it is a process for Jeremy. We spoke with him after the game,” said Ismael.

“We knew that he didn’t play a lot last season and the game against QPR he played 90 minutes but that was his first for a long period of time.

“It is a process to get all the players 100% in terms of fitness levels. Some players are already there but some are not at the minute, and Jeremy is one of them.

“We need to work with him, and at some point he has to be able to play 90 minutes and sometimes to do it every three days.

“Right now we are getting to know the players better and to see what is the moment for him to play and what is the time for him to rest.”

The Watford head coach said that he understands younger players often struggle for consistency.

“I think this is a normal process for young players to go through,” he said.

“It was not Jeremy’s best day but he has had so many good days and he will have a lot of good games again.

“You have to deal with performances of young players. It is up and down, up and down, up and down, until they learn to put in the performances with consistency.

“But this is my job. It is my job to improve the young players. I think that we made it already with Matheus Martins, Yaser is coming in, Ryan Andrews is the next one.

“It is another part of my job to make sure that the young players perform consistently. It takes time.”

At the start of the season Watford scored four against QPR but then didn’t hit the net while looking solid at the back in subsequent games.

More recently the goals have come, but seemingly at a cost of being more porous in defence.

“I think we have to find balance. At the beginning of the season we were really strong defensively,” Ismael reflected.

“I think we are still strong defensively, it’s just the mistakes we made in our own half allow the opponents to create chances.

“It’s more that we must reduce the mistakes because we know we can score at any time. You need to do that while giving the opponent the feeling we are difficult score goals against.

“At the moment it’s the opposite. They still have to stay strong and defend well, but they also know we are likely to give them a chance.

“That sort of belief in the opponent’s mind is what we need to avoid.

“There are a lot of positives we have seen so far, but on the other hand we need to reduce the mistakes.”