Watching the running, pressing and ground covered by the Watford players on Saturday, it was hard to believe that was a group of players that head coach Valerien Ismael said had a ‘lazy attitude’ when he first arrived for pre-season training.

As he said before the game, five of the squad he inherited didn’t even make it to London Colney on time for first his first training session.

Wind forward seven weeks, and clearly the new head coach has got that laziness out of the players’ systems – and he said after the 4-0 win over QPR things had changed quickly. Very quickly.

“It was only lazy on that first day. After the first day, it never happened again,” he explained.

“We made clear why we do the job. I’m here with the players and we work hard together to be successful, but if at some point I have to make a decision then I will make my decision.

“What I do is always to protect the team. The team comes above everything and the players need to understand that.

“If you respect the rules, if you are able to be committed, and do what we try to do, then you can get the rewards.

“I think the picture you got today was that the players understood what it’s all about at the minute.”

The head coach said he knew many fans, having witnessed two seasons of underperformance, would have arrived at Vicarage Road on Saturday full of scepticism and doubt.

“A lot of people came to the stadium for the first game with a lot of questions,” he conceded.

“What is going on with Watford? What will the performance today be?

“So we wanted to show up and show the results of our work over the last seven weeks.

“We made the perfect first step but it’s nothing more than the first step. Now we focus on the next one.

“Today will help to create that belief and build that momentum we need.”

And Ismael made it quite clear that one win over a side seemingly set for a long hard season was nothing more than three points and a clean sheet. He will not allow anybody to rest on their laurels.

“We always want more. The desire is always that. Our expectation is always high, whenever you start a new competition or a new game,” he said.

“You want to start with a win, and you can ask every manager in the world. They all want to win. Players want to win.

“The difference now is everyone here knows exactly what we have to do to get those wins.

“For sure we could have scored more goals, but Begovic had a great game to keep a clean sheet in the second half.

“But you could not expect much more. There was tiredness, the sun was suddenly above the stadium and that made it warm for everyone.

“I’m just satisfied that we started well.”

The head coach said the work put in at London Colney during the seven-week pre-season was what led to the performance on Saturday.

“We have tried to implement our way in seven weeks, and it has worked very well.

“We played strong sides in pre-season, Premier League clubs, and they struggled to deal with us and that gave the players to confidence to be brave with the ball.

“You never know what can happen in the Championship because even when you have possession you are not sure you can win the game.

“I think it was clear to see today that the players now believe more and more in this method.”