Christian Kabasele says Watford have shaken off any phobia of playing big teams and instead are feared by opponents in the Premier League.

The Hornets competed throughout Saturday's 4-2 defeat to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, and were eventually undone by some poor individual mistakes coupled with moments of quality from Antonio Conte's expensive bench in particular.

With the Blues out of form, it was Watford who looked the more comfortable for much of the game, coming into the match with an unbeaten away record and on the back of a confidence-boosting win over Arsenal last weekend.

Victory over Chelsea would have cemented their best-ever start to a top-flight season, but even after their late capitulation, Marco Silva has still got people talking about the club this season.

"There’s a lot of respect from outside the club now," said Kabasele. "We’ve played very well in the last few games, and the teams are afraid to play against us.

"We’re not an easy team to play, and it’s good for the club and everybody involved. We need to keep going and working every day to keep this fear in our opponents.

"That fear isn’t there any more for us, because we’ve had a lot of good results since the start of the season.

"We’ve drawn with Liverpool, beaten Arsenal, and we had nothing to lose here. I don’t know how much possession we had, but we kept the ball a lot and that showed that we can play free of mind here."