A new number nine will arrive at Vicarage Road at some point, but that isn’t an indication of loss in faith in Vakoun Bayo.

The striker has scored in both Watford’s games so far, and said recently to the Watford Observer that Hornets fans hadn’t seen the best of him.

However, the fact remains that in the style head coach Valerien Ismael wants to play, he doesn’t have a natural replacement for Bayo.

Hence the hunt continues but, in the meantime, the message to Bayo is the club are looking for depth and to offer him a challenge, not to simply push him aside.

“We have a striker, and it’s important what we say to Bayo, and what I say to him,” said Ismael.

“We have Bayo, but the Championship is long with so many games and anything can happen. What if he gets injured? What if he gets suspended? What are our options?

“In other positions we’ve got two players so we have the possibility to rotate or to change something.

“And for the player, he needs to feel the pressure of someone wanting to play as well. Competition can help us to force players to reach their limits.

“What we need is the support – we know we are looking for a number nine to give us more strength and depth in our squad, and more flexibility if we have to change the shape.”

All summer long a host of different names have been linked with Watford, and at last night’s At Your Place event chairman Scott Duxbury said the club are in negotiations.

Half a day has not been enough time to make any progress though.

“Nothing has changed this morning. We keep working behind the scenes, intensively,” the head coach explained.

“It’s not that simple. You can be sure we’d like to have the striker here yesterday rather than tomorrow. But at some point you have to stay calm and to hold that trust and confidence that we can get the deal done soon.

“We keep talking, we keep in touch with the board. Everyone is aware and you can be sure that we are working hard.”

So what if Bayo is suddenly unavailable?

“I think we will speak about that situation when the problem comes!” said Ismael.

“It’s something in our mind. At the moment we have only one striker with that profile and it has worked well.

“So we have to make sure we can cover that position and do the job properly like we expect.

“You can be sure everyone is aware of what we want to do. We are trying to find the right solution for us.

“So far we have had many issues with the finding process but I am confident we can get something done as soon as possible.”