There was a good degree of nonchalance in the way Jake Livermore struck the opening goal yesterday.

He had the look of a man taking a shot against one of his sons in the garden as he calmly sent a curling, dipping shot way beyond the reach of Rangers keeper Asmir Begovic.

Yeah, he does that all the time – and just to prove a point he did it again five minutes later, this time going for a lower daisycutter that flashed past Begovic into the bottom corner.

“For Jake, it’s probably not his main job to score goals but I’m pleased for him as he has a great mentality and is a very important player for us,” said head coach Valerien Ismael.

“He is a great example to our young players in the squad. He had difficulty getting his rhythm at the start of the season but now he has got it you can see how important he is for us.

“It just shows our way of playing provides strength in offensive ways, which means everyone is involved from the keeper to the No.9, and we have many players capable of scoring goals.

“Jake is one of them, although I can’t remember the last time he scored three goals in one season,” the Watford boss added – it was actually during the 2019/20 season when he was at West Brom under former Hornets head coach Slaven Bilic.

Livermore has scored three goals in 1,407 minutes of league football for the Hornets this season. He had only scored three in 7,583 minutes of league football before this season.

He’s only scored 24 goals in a career that has so far spanned 494 senior appearances – 21 in the first 473 before arriving at Vicarage Road, three in 21 since.

It was his first brace in a game since he scored twice for Hull in a 5-1 win over Rotherham on May 7, 2016, so yesterday's double was his first in an away league game in his career.

That 15/16 season also produced his highest goal tally in a season - four - so two more for the Hornets and Livermore breaks his own record!

At the opposite end of the pitch was another player instrumental in the Watford victory, keeper Ben Hamer.

His save to deny Sinclair Armstrong just seconds into the second half was pivotal, while his diving effort to deny Jimmy Dunne in stoppage time was a matchwinner – the fact the ball came through a crowd of legs and Hamer managed to push the it away from goal underlined just what a save it was.

“I think now everyone will start to see why we took the decision to bring Ben in,” said Ismael.

“We knew the quality he could bring to the team. We have two great keepers and it is always a case of looking at the balance and seeing what is best for the team.

“I think today you saw again why Ben is in the team.”

Rhys Healey made his first league start and drew words of praise from the Watford head coach.

“I think he did the job well, even though he is a different type of profile to our other No.9s,” Ismael commented.

“His link-up play was good, and he put us in some good situations in the first half.

“We have three different possibilities for the No.9 and they each know what they have to do.

“They all know the job, and I think Rhys did the job great today.”

There was only a fleeting cameo from Mileta Rajovic but in one moment near the end of the game he showed something that has been largely absent from his previous performances.

Chasing the ball down into the corner, he got his body across one centre half, held the other off, and grappled with the pair before finally winning a throw deep in Rangers territory.

Ismael has always said Rajovic was a work in progress, and that sort of line leadership is a welcome addition to his skillset.

“That has been my work from day one, to work with our young players and to help them adapt,” the Watford boss said.

“That is what we do on the training pitch, that is the discussions we have in my office, that is what we take from the video sessions we have.

“We want to make sure that every young player, including Rajovic, knows what we want them to do.

“The Championship is a ruthless division and centre-backs are usually big and strong. He just needed to learn how he can use his body against that.”