After a couple of seasons where finding a man of the match was often like looking for a four-leafed clover, yesterday’s rampant victory over QPR presented several contenders.

In such an outstanding team performance, it was difficult to single out the best of the lot and while head coach Valerien Ismael didn’t do that, he did discuss some of the eyecatchers.

First up, the move of Francisco Sierralta from central defence into the holding midfield role just in front of the back four.

“We knew it worked well because we saw it in pre-season. He gave us that feeling,” said Ismael.

“In our method and plan we need to give freedom to our midfield players. We have Imran Louza, Tom Dele-Bashiru, Ismael Kone and Giorgi Chakvetadze, and we need their quality high on the pitch around the box.

“If you do that you need more stability, and have someone whose job it is to defend and to give that freedom to the others.

“That profile of the player we needed - when we started pre-season - we didn’t have that profile of player, so we tried some options and Sierralta gave us the feeling straight away that he understood what we wanted.

“Week after week after week he became better and better and better. He enjoys the position and we spoke with him a lot, and he said it was no problem for him.

“He gives us more options as he can play centre-back and as a six. We now have players who can play in other positions, and he makes us more flexible in our line-up.”

A goal, an assist and a pass completion rate of 91% made Imran Louza another of the star performers.

“A lot of players played at a high level today, but for Imran the most important thing was that last season he didn’t have a real pre-season,” Ismael explained.

“He got injured twice and for a player like him it is very important to be fit. This year he made every training session every week during pre-season, and straight away you see the difference.

“He has that confidence in his body, and when you have that then you are able to show your quality.”

Off the bench there was a debut for Georgian international Georgi Chakvetadze, whose skill, pace and trickery gave the performance another injection of excitement.

“I think, from day one when he came, everyone was buzzing about him,” said Ismael.

“The feeling we’ve got with him is that we have a special player, and he gives us more options in midfield. He’s able to play on the wing as well.”

When Vakoun Bayo spoke to the Watford Observer last week, he said fans hadn’t seen the best of him so far at Vicarage Road. A goal, plenty of pressing and some delightful touches leading the line showed he was good to his word.

With most fans expecting a new number nine to arrive before the end of August, many felt Bayo may be just a stop-gap solution. Not so, said Ismael.

“The question is not about Bayo. We are 100% convinced about Bayo,” said the head coach.

“The question is about what happens if he is not on the pitch. Do we have the depth and type of striker to continue to play like that?

“The question for us is to see if we are happy with what we’ve got, or if we need to do something to give more stability in our squad. That’s what we have to assess.”