The experienced head Watford are looking to bring in as part of Tom Cleverley’s new coaching staff may well be someone with no Vicarage Road connections at all - but he must come from a winning environment.

While there have been many names floating around since it was confirmed Jimmy Gilligan would be returning to his previous role in the club’s Academy, quite a few are either ex-Watford players, coaching staff, and some who have done both.

And while the appointment is still to be made and announced, Cleverley’s comments about the final piece of the coaching staff jigsaw suggested it could be someone with no previous links to WD18.

“Even if the person that comes in is not a Watford person they’ll certainly be from a winning environment and buy into the Watford DNA,” he said.

“We’re fairly far down the line and it’s one we don’t want to announce yet, but the club and I are working towards someone we have in mind who will be a perfect fit for the job.

“I keep talking about the need for a winning environment, and so I would like it to be someone who has come from that.

“The DNA of the club is firmly running through it now. Jimmy and Richard Johnson are getting the Academy streamlined with where we’re at in the first-team set-up.

“I feel we’re connecting with our fans, and that’s because there is a strong DNA at the football club running right through it.”

Cleverley paid tribute to Gilligan, whose work in the Academy is obvious with the likes of Ryan Andrews and Jack Grieves playing for the first team, and Albert Eames, Zavier Massiah-Edwards and Amin Nabizada all making the bench for senior games this season.

“Jimmy has been fantastic and he now goes back to the Academy, which was always the plan,” the Watford boss said.

“I know his door is always open across the car park if I need him.

“There is space on the staff for one more and we recognise that position should be someone with more experience than me, Damon and Armand.

“It will be a really important addition.”

Cleverley says one thing he wants to take from his time with the Academy into his job with the first team is the environment in which everyone worked.

“The environment you work in does everything to create a winning habit,” he explained.

“Yes, good players help but I think the good environment is where you start and that is what I am trying to create.

“We had it in the Academy, and last night I was at an Academy event and was asked would I be getting the Academy to play the same way as the first team.

“For me that’s not important. What’s important is that they have the exact same environment.

“The way we work, the way we behave. It has to be consistent.

“So that is what I will try to create here and coming from a background where winning is normal, that is what I want to have here.”