Silva: Watford's goal has not changed

The Hornets have started the season in fine form and sit in sixth place with 15 points after nine games, but Silva was quick to play down expectations.

Speaking ahead of Saturday's clash with Stoke, he said: "The only thing realistic for us, and believe me, is that we don't change our goal and our goal is clear for everybody, to keep Watford as a Premier League club.

"It's clear nobody is changing our goal. I don't need to talk to my players every day about this situation because they know and we think in each game this is our way.

"Of course I believe we can achieve our goal. I believe we can do better than in the last two seasons because we work for that, but our goal is to keep the club in the Premier League."

Watford will be looking to bounce back from their 4-2 defeat at Chelsea last weekend, but their previous home game was a 2-1 victory over Arsenal and Silva is pleased with the progress they are making.

He added: "Why would I change? Of course, I am happy with the way we play. I am happy that we compete in every match. We compete in our style of play. We showed in the last match what is our way and why change?

"Everything starts now. It's too early to change something. We need to prove every day and in every match what we want and the next game is a big challenge to prove again that we are going in the right way."