If the team announced at 2pm surprised fans because there were no newcomers in the starting XI, then those fans would have been equally surprised at the performance that group of players went on to give against QPR.

The bench contained a number of players eagerly waiting to make their Watford debut, but the 11 who lined up at kick-off were all survivors of the ‘clean out’ referred to in yesterday’s pre-match press conference.

And that was a key point head coach Valerien Ismael wanted to make after the opening day 4-0 romp.

“One thing that is very important for the club is that the 11 starters today were here last season,” he pointed out.

“Those 11 were at Watford last season. So it is just making the difference in the mindset of the players.

"It just shows they are willing to do it better. We’ve got the quality and I think it was perfect today, not just the result but the attitude and the mindset.

“After seven weeks of hard work the attitude was there to get the reward, and they wanted to start to create the momentum within the team.”

Ismael said that way back at the start of pre-season, he asked the players if they had the desire to change.

“Credit to the players. When I came here I spoke with them and everyone was willing to do better,” he said.

“They recognised it was not enough and sometimes maybe it was unacceptable, considering the quality in the squad.

“But they understood that now it is about hard work – every day.

“Not too much talking about results or goals, because first you need to put the performance on the pitch. And that is what you do every day in training.”

Opening days don’t go much better than scoring four without reply before half-time, and Ismael said that while he couldn’t guarantee the result when the first whistle went, he did know his team were well prepared.

“As a manager, you always have to have the perfect plan, because you can never be sure what will happen,” he said.

“The only thing I could tell you that I knew for sure was that the guys were ready.

“As I said yesterday, we had worked hard for seven weeks and they gave us the feeling they were ready for the competition.

“I told them that to get the reward they need to put the right attitude and the intensity into the game.”

What element of the victory and performance pleased the head coach the most?

“I think how we scored the goals,” he smiled.

“The combinations that we have worked on for the last seven weeks, everything was there.

“The positioning of the players was good. We attacked together and we defended together.

“The guys applied the plan perfectly today.”