Craig Cathcart believes Watford need to improve at both ends of the pitch if they are to kick-start their Premier League season and climb away from the basement.

The Hornets have picked up just a single point from their first four league games, shipping eight goals and also scoring a top-flight low of just two so far.

The centre-half confirmed that Quique Sanchez Flores has been concentrating on Watford’s defensive play in his first week back at the club since replacing Javi Gracia, but he also accepts his team-mates need to start converting more of their chances as well.

“I think the whole team need to perform better, attacking and defending,” the 30-year-old said. “We’ve missed a lot of chances and we’ve conceded a lot of goals in the last few months.

"It’s something that the manager will be working on; he’s been in this week and the defence has been the first part that he wants to work on and build off that foundation. We have to focus on defending better as a team and attacking as a team.”

It is 16 Premier League matches since Watford last kept a top-flight clean sheet when they beat Everton 1-0 in February. While Cathcart couldn’t identify a specific reason why the Hornets took a turn for the worse defensively, he hopes new eyes and ideas on the training ground will have the desired effect.

He said: “There wasn’t much change from the start of last season. We tried to do the same things and play in the same way and I can’t really put my finger on it.

“When you’re involved in it and you’re conceding goals, you can’t really think of why. You’re just trying to do the right thing, trying to do that same things and things aren’t going your way. Possibly a fresh look at things with a new manager will help in that respect.”

Sanchez Flores revealed on Thursday that Cathcart was unlikely to feature in tomorrow’s match against Arsenal due to a muscle problem.

The Northern Ireland international explained that he sustained a “small tear” in his thigh in the 2-0 European Championship qualifying defeat to Germany on Monday, but he doesn’t expect to be out of action for long.

He said: “It’s probably going to be one or two weeks until I’m back training and playing again, so it could have been worse. I’m quite relieved.”