Having conceded four at Norwich in their last away Championship fixture, head coach Tom Cleverley said he would look to make his team a little more solid.

That was doubly important at the start of games, where Watford had got into the undesired habit of conceding early goals.

Away at Manchester City, the Hornets overcame going a goal down early on to look very robust against the Premier League champions and followed that up in the win over Sunderland where they were strong in their own final third.

That was achieved with only minor tweaks in approach, and no reduction in attacking intent.

“Football is a funny game where people can think that a back four is more attacking than a back five,” said Cleverley.

“When you attack so well with wing backs, we’re actually attacking with more players than we would be if we were playing 4-3-3.

“In a 4-3-3, a lot of the time you attack with only three players.

“Now we’re playing with two No.10s, a No.9 and pair of wing-backs, so we’re attacking with five.

“People think if you play a back three with two full-backs as wing-backs that you’re a defensive team, but it’s clearly not like that.

“I’m less obsessed with systems and more interested in how many numbers you’re getting into attacking areas.”

Watford bossed the first half of the game with Sunderland at Vicarage Road and could have gone in at half-time with more than a one-goal lead.

“We had a lot of domination in the first half that didn’t materialise into too many clear-cut chances,” said the Watford boss.

“I’m pleased with the attacking output of our players though.

“We’ve only fired one blank this season, at Sheffield United, and the attacking aspects of our play I’m very pleased with.

“It was a big part of the work we did in the summer to improve that from the final nine games of last season.

“It’s my job to make sure the balance doesn’t go too much that we end up with another Norwich.

“In the main I’ve been very pleased with our attacking output and I was again on Saturday.”