A 2-1 defeat to Tottenham on Wednesday night would have been hard to stomach for Gracia, as Watford again proved profligate.

But, while the Spaniard knows finishing must improve, he has backed his players to score the easy goals – starting at Brighton on Saturday.

"I try to take advantage of the chances we are creating," he said.

"If we score these kinds of goals I am happy because all of them are amazing goals but we need to take other kinds of chances as well.

"We need it, we spoke about it last week – we have been the team to miss the most big chances this season.

"I think we need to be more demanding to be more clinical in those situations. We try to create the situations where the players can finish because they have the quality to do it.

"Then there are other moments in play where they have to finish and in those situations we can improve because we have the quality and I'm sure in the next games we will do it better.

"All of them are demanding with themselves and only in this way can we compete the way we are doing.

"For sure we need to improve things, we need to finish better but we play this way – it is our personality and characteristics and we try to improve them."

Watford head to the south coast with midfielder Abdoulaye Doucoure still likely to be absent due to a knee injury.

Tom Cleverley may also be rested as he still works his way back to full fitness having only recently returned from a year-long lay-off.

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