Knowing that the current head coach will not be changed if results are not good removes the alibi players have used in the past for their poor performances.

That was how Valerien Ismael explained the awarding of his new contract to media in his press conference after the 1-1 draw at Cardiff City on Saturday.

To the outside world, handing a coach who has only won two games a new contract just a few months after he joined is probably quite puzzling – and that could be true for some Watford fans as well.

So it’s no surprise that Ismael has been quizzed on it by media and it’s likely he will be for a while to come.

After Saturday’s game, he gave some more detail as to why he and the club felt it was the right thing to do.

“If you want to build something, you need stability,” he said.

“Why is stability important? It gives the players security, trust in the club.

“If you believe in our way of working – and the club did – then you have to make a statement to the players.

“The habit in the past has been that when things go wrong we change the manager – again and again and again.

“That gave the players an alibi. They say ‘okay, we’ll wait for the next one’.

“I think now the club have sent a clear message. We want to go this way all together, we believe in each other: the club, me and my staff.

“Now we have made sure the players have that security in their minds, and we now need to improve the trust and that connection between club, staff and team.

“It’s a process as we go through a massive transition period, and I think in that period going through a tough situation will help us to be stronger.

“We will come out of this situation, and we will have come through something difficult and made ourselves better.”

Having unsuccessfully changed the shape of the team for the home game with Middlesbrough, the head made some tweaks to formation and personnel at Cardiff and this time got a better result.

“We learned a lot from the game and performance,” said Ismael.

“We changed the line-up to be more solid, maybe to something more suitable to what you need at some points.

“I thought the reaction was very good.

“We have ended up disappointed not to have won, but we have to assess the situation. When you have lost three games in a row and we have the feeling that we are giving games away with mistakes, then that knocks confidence.

“That’s why we played as we did at the start. The spark is missing, the flow is missing.

“So you have to go back to the roots: stay solid, win the duels, grow confidence by taking the right decisions.

“I thought we played some good football, we created some chances, we just need the win now to bring relief.

“We have a break and then we need to come back and put that same mentality, that same desire, into the next game.”