With 90 minutes of first-team football in the bank over the last four games, any question marks hanging over midfielder Imran Louza can now be removed.

That was the upbeat message from Watford head coach Slaven Bilic ahead of tomorrow’s home game with Preston at Vicarage Road.

The Morocco international played almost an hour in the defeat at Sheffield United last week as he continued his comeback following a broken ankle.

He seems certain to start tomorrow, although full-back Hasane Kamara is still injured. Other squad news was that both Jeremy Ngakia and Joao Ferreira have resumed training, but Tom Dele-Bashiru, Edo Kayembe and Francisco Sierralta are all unlikely to feature again this season.

The news that Louza is ready to play a fuller part in the remaining games clearly gave Bilic a boost.

“Imran has built up minutes in games, and now we can treat him with less scrutiny in terms of how many minutes he can play,” he said.

“He’s got three games under his belt and now finally I can treat him as normal. It’s a big boost for us, and we have a bigger squad for the 12 games that are ahead of us.

“I was disappointed that we lost at Sheffield United, but I was quite happy with how we looked for the 60 minutes that Imran was on the pitch.

“We were controlling the game, we looked good defensively and they didn’t do a lot to hurt us. We responded well to their direct game and I thought we were good on the ball up to the last third of the pitch.

“What Imran is very good at is bringing us to the final third in numbers. He needed those minutes and then to start a game, he had to get those 60 minutes in from the kick-off.

“If there were any little question marks still there, now they are gone and we are expecting him and the whole team to benefit from having him back.

“We have been playing good but now players are back and are fit we expect to play better.”

The first-team squad now has three right-backs in its ranks as well.

“Joao and Jeremy are back in training, their injuries meant not being out for a really long time but not being back in a couple of weeks. They may not be ready for tomorrow’s game though.

“It’s only really Hasane that hasn’t fully trained of those we expected.

“He’s having a scan this morning. He feels much better and has trained well, so unless the scan shows something totally different to what he feels then he should be back in full training and be ready for the QPR game.

“Unfortunately Tom Dele-Bashiru injured his ankle and he’s going to be out for the rest of the season. It’s the same for Francisco, it’s unlikely we’ll see him again this season, and also Edo’s calf injury is not going away so he looks like he’ll be out too.”

One piece of surprise news was that club captain Tom Cleverley may still play a part on the pitch this term, albeit nearer the end of the campaign.

“Tom is a great healer and a great professional, and he will be back this season,” said Bilic.

“The thigh injury wasn’t a massive one. He might be back in three or four weeks.”