In the context of recent results and performances, coupled with opposition that had a new manager and made eight team changes, Valerien Ismael said he had to be pleased with the win over Sheffield Wednesday.

Watford hadn’t won since mid-September and had been shipping goals for fun before the international break.

So, while it was hardly a game that was easy on the eye and the Hornets were not convincing, a 1-0 win was most welcome.

“We haven’t won a lot, the confidence is not that high, the opponents had just changed the manager and when you are preparing for the game because of that you are almost flying blind,” said the head coach.

“Because we have good knowledge of football in the club we were prepared, we had looked at his previous club and had a good idea of what will come.

“But we are not coming into games with the sort of confidence where we think we are going to smash the opponent. That will hopefully come with time as you win games and build momentum

“Then the opponents made eight changes and completely refreshed their team, and we had to deal with that at the beginning to get the picture right.”

It certainly appeared to take Watford a long time to settle, and they lapsed back into making a lot of unforced errors and bad decisions.

“At the end of the first half we started to make mistakes again and again, and that helped the confidence of the opponent,” said Ismael.

“We had to deal with that and I think we came back into the game in the second half with the changes we made, which gave the guys more stability.

“We were more solid at the back, we kept a clean sheet and then we got the goal.

“When you look at it like that, in that context at the minute, then we are pleased.”

The Watford boss said he had not been worried that the goal would not come.

“I believe always we are able to score, and that can be in the very first or very last minute,” he said.

“We showed that against Birmingham and it’s good when you’ve shown that already and you then have that belief.

“As I said before the game, we now have all the players available and when you looked at the bench today we had a lot of quality. That puts pressure on the players on the pitch to perform.

“If players are not performing then they know we will have to change as there are players with quality waiting to take their place.

“The bench made the difference today. Ken Sema came back and was brilliant, Giorgi Chakvetadze, Ismael Kone, Mileta Rajovic fought like a tiger today and then Yaser Asprilla finished the job.

“More and more we are coming through with team spirit and teamwork. We aren’t relying on just one or two players to make the difference.

“Now we have the ability for any player to make the difference at anytime, and hopefully this result with bring the confidence to step up more build momentum.”