Kabasele misses Norwich , Pedro and Cathcart in the squad

Kabasele picked up a hamstring injury in the moments before Blackpool scored their second goal at the weekend, while Sierralta had recovered sufficiently from a groin strain to come on as a substitute but then sustained a hamstring injury of his own and had to come back off again.

Meanwhile Hause continues to be sidelined by a knee injury.

“Kabasele has a hamstring injury, he won’t play tomorrow,” said Bilic.

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“We conceded the second goal at Blackpool partly because Kabasele got injured and he stopped running. They made the cross in that moment and scored.

“Sierralta is the same leg but a different area. It was the groin, but now it’s the hamstring. It looked worse straight after the game and the way he described it, but fortunately it’s not that bad. We’re talking two to three weeks, rather than five or eight weeks.”

There is some positive news in terms of the defence though.

“Cathcart will come back into the squad, and we will make a decision on Gaspar tomorrow,” added Bilic.

“We have players who will miss the game and then players who are coming back. There are still too many injuries but most of them are ones that were here already, only a few of them happened in the games with Swansea and Blackpool.”

The head coach also confirmed that Joao Pedro will play some part in tomorrow’s game, having not been able to select him since he took the job.

“When we came here Pedro had that calf injury,” he said.

“Calf muscles are very sensitive and you don’t get a warning that something is about to happen. You have to be a little more cautious with the calf.

“But he’s been training with the group for the whole week. He is definitely going to be in the squad. You want him playing 90 minutes every game, but we have to be clever and not do anything crazy. He will play a part of the game tomorrow though.

“He is a player that allows you to plan the things you want to do. He’s one of the reasons why I came here, he is a key player. The sooner we have him back properly, the better.

“But because of those reasons, we don’t want to risk anything. We have to find a balance.

“There is no issue now with his calf, it’s more a matter of getting him fit. He wasn’t out for ages but he hasn’t trained fully until this week.

“It’s difficult to work on things when you have this amount of injuries, especially when many of them are in the same positions on the pitch. We’re having to rotate and play people in positions where they don’t naturally feel at home.

“It is getting better though, and so let’s be positive.”

Club captain Tom Cleverley continues to ruled out by an Achilles’ problem, while both Jeremy Ngakia and Rey Manaj are still out as they recover from hamstring injuries.

Last season the visit of Norwich was a Premier League fixture, but also one that Watford fans wanted to erase quickly from their minds as the Canaries eased to a 3-0 victory.

Bilic stressed the importance of going into the game with the correct mindset.

“It’s two clubs that got relegated and have good players. It’s a big game and you have to be complete in every area of the pitch.

“You have to be compact and compete, and use the spells you have in possession with good attitude and a good mentality. We need to be on the front foot and try to get our best players into a position where they can hurt Norwich.

“We’ve been working on that for the whole week and we feel that we will be able to allow our good players to shine and express themselves.

“It is a mental battle too. I knew when I came here that last season wasn’t enjoyable. Losing games, getting relegated, it wasn’t shiny and happy. You can change that mentality by talking to the players, by giving them new ideas, but the best way to change it is to get a string of results. Not one or two, but a run of good results.

“But to get that you have to deserve to get those results, and that is what we are aiming for.”