Captain Craig Cathcart once again played a pivotal role in Watford keeping their fourth consecutive clean sheet, but he was quick to praise two-goal Joao Pedro.

The Northern Ireland international was particularly impressed by the Brazilian’s second goal, and likened it to the heading ability of a former Watford teammate who has just returned from the World Cup.

“He’s brilliant, real dynamite,” said Cathcart, referring to Pedro.

READ MORE

“I said to him after the game I was more impressed with his header than the first goal because it was unbelievable how he got it into the top corner. It was unstoppable.

“He’s quite aggressive in the air and doesn’t mind putting his head in where it hurts. You seem to get that with Brazilian players because Richarlison was very similar.

“As for at the back, it’s nice to have that solid defence and something to work from. The more clean sheets you have, the more chances you’re going to have to win games.

“I think early on we struggled with their patterns and movement but overall I think we defended our box well and hit them on the break a few times in the first half.

“We could have gone in at half-time a goal up with the chances we had, but we knew we had to be patient. We broke away two or three times towards the end of the first half and had good opportunities and maybe should have had a penalty.

“We knew if we kept knocking at the door then the chances would come, and we had the lads to put them away.”

With Burnley winning again, the Hornets are still 10 points behind the Championship leaders, and Cathcart is keen that Watford don’t get too preoccupied with what is happening around them.

“I think it’s key to focus on ourselves and not look too much at what other teams are doing. We have to try and do our job,” he said.

“It was a difficult game coming here, because over the years we’ve tended to come here and struggle. So it was good to get a 2-0 win, move on and try to keep building momentum.

“The two lads in midfield put a big shift in today. Leandro has come in, got chucked straight into the team and did brilliantly. He had to come off after an hour but we worked around that.

“I think the fact we’ve come here with five midfielders out and managed to get a result shows that we have a bit of depth to our squad.

“We want to build on the win and take that into the game with Millwall on Boxing Day. It’s strange this year to have eight days between games but I think that’ll change down the line because we have a lot of games to play in January.”

The defender has played the full 90 minutes in both games since fixtures resumed – before then his last full appearance came against Luton in October.

“The break came at a good time for me. I managed to get a rest and I hadn’t trained much before that so I was able to get a good two or three weeks work into me as well.

“We’ve got options now in defence, and all over the pitch really. The players know they have to stay on top of their game to stay in the team, because whoever is on the bench