Six home league wins and just one in the new year – that was the sorry tale of Watford playing in front of their own fans at Vicarage Road last season.

Between the 3-2 victory over Norwich on November 28 and the 1-0 defeat of Sunderland on April 27, the Hornets failed to win 12 consecutive home games in the Championship, picking up a paltry six points from a possible 36.

Over the last two seasons, since dropping back into the second tier, Watford have won only 17 of their 46 home league fixtures.

Tuesday night’s emphatic cup victory over MK Dons made Vicarage Road a happier place, but the real business starts tomorrow when points are at stake – and Tom Cleverley has stressed he has made it very clear to his players that things have to change at home.

“I’ve put a lot of emphasis on that,” he said.

“I’ve said openly before that we have five targets to achieve our goals this season, and home form is one of those.

“I’ll never just think of a number and say that to the players, it’ll be a process towards achieving that.

“I’ve made it really clear, it’s been presented two or three times now, and there’ll maybe be another reminder before Saturday.

“It’s going to be a much different game against Stoke, with all respect to MK Dons.”

Watford could do little more than win their first two games of the season, but the Watford boss wants success to become the norm and not a reason to get the bunting out.

“It’s been a positive start but I’ve said to the guys that I don’t want it to be a celebratory atmosphere,” he said.

“I want them to feel the sense of reward, but to create a winning culture and winners it’s all about the next game.

“We’ll double down on our high standards and our training methods, and try to continue the good feeling we’ve got.

“They are good feelings and you have to earn those feelings every time.

“You have to earn the right to be able to perform consistently and that’s what has pleased me the most on the first two games – we have done the basics well.

“We had maybe five minutes at Millwall and 10 minutes against MK Dons, but other than that we have done the basics very well.

“That’s tackle, first and second contacts, and set pieces. If you do those well you’ll be hard to beat.”

The head coach admitted that actually enjoying victories doesn’t come easy because he immediately begins thinking about the next fixture.

“In this job you never really have a chance to get a sense of achievement. If you win three, then you want four.

“Ok it’s nice that we are hearing some positive stats and that will create more belief among everyone.

“But my focus is on Stoke, and then if Stoke is positive then my focus just turns straight to Derby and that’s the nature of this job.”