Three players who have only made one appearance between them in 2023 due to injury are back to full fitness and working with the first-team squad in pre-season.

Samuel Kalu last played on January 2, while neither Edo Kayembe or Tom Dele-Bashiru have featured at all this year.

Nigerian international Kalu banked nine appearances last season, seven of them as a substitute, although he had made a bright start in the game away at Norwich at the start of the year on a day when the then-head coach Slaven Bilic had as many players injured as he had fit.

However, only 30 minutes into that game Kalu went down with what turned out to be an addition to the long list of hamstring injuries at the club and didn’t play again.

Kayembe played in each of the first 21 Championship games last season, as well as the sole Carabao Cup tie, and he started in 19 of the league fixtures.

However, that was all before the World Cup break in November, during which he sustained a calf injury that it was initially thought would need only a few weeks to recover from.

However, the DR Congo international couldn’t shake it off but he has worked on through the summer and is now back in full training.

Injury had already blighted Dele-Bashiru’s Watford career, as an ACL problem cut short his 2020/21 campaign. He played 39 times on loan at Reading the following season but then was sidelined with a knee problem at the start of last season.

He returned to action in October, making a brief substitute appearance in the defeat at Blackpool, and then an even shorter run-out from the bench in November’s home win over Reading.

The midfielder then started the first four games when the Championship resumed in mid-December.

However, with 20 minutes to go in the 4-0 defeat at Swansea on December 30, he limped off with an ankle ligament injury and his season was curtailed.