Watford head coach Javi Gracia has placed his faith in hard work and togetherness following a difficult start to the Premier League last weekend at home against Brighton.

The Hornets have won just two league matches since beating Leicester City last season on March 3, both of which were against relegated teams in Huddersfield and Fulham, with the statistics not making for pretty reading.

In that time, they have conceded 21 goals from 10 games, including seven defeats, without taking into account the six goal drubbing at the hands of Manchester City in the FA Cup final.

However, Gracia believes that his side have the right attitude to turn their fortunes around and produce the form that impressed so much during the early stages of their last campaign, while acknowledging that he also has to take responsibility for some of his side's shortcomings.

"If you want you can be positive, if you want you can be negative, but I want to be focused on the truth and the truth is we need to improve. We need to improve many things and we're working on that.

"We're working trying to recover the best things we did in the beginning and trying to improve all the things we can do.

"When we finished against Brighton some asked about the players out of the team, it's not the solution. The main solution is to try to work during the week and to improve with all the players.

"All of them have to improve, even me, I'm the first one. I'm demanding with myself, I have to improve, I know it. But this week I was trying to analyse, trying to prepare as better as possible the next training, the next game and it's the only way I know to improve.

"I think the players are in the same direction, like me. I'm not able to understand this team without that togetherness. I think we need it. We're competing against clubs with more money than us, we're competing against teams with maybe better players than us, better coaches than us, we need that strength as a team, we need it. It's something we need to keep during all the season if we want to achieve our objectives."

Gracia was buoyed by the fact some of his key players have had time to recover more over the past week, but knows the away trip to Goodison Park this weekend will present a tough challenge.

The game will almost certainly come too soon for record signing Ismaila Sarr, who only started training with the club on Wednesday, while Danny Welbeck could find himself on the bench.

"This week we have some little problems, but I think all of them are ready. There's different situations for all of them but I don't have any player injured.

"Pereyra and Deulofeu are better. Roberto because he's had five training sessions more and he needed it. Gerard in this case is better because he had a small stomach problem before the game, but now he's recovered.

"Sarr, I think he needs more time, Welbeck maybe is not in the best condition, but he could help us this weekend if we need him for some minutes.

"Everton is much more than simple, they have a good squad, a good manager, all the games with them are very equal.

"We won one game, we drew the other one but were winning until the last minute. All the games are very equal and I expect the same.

" It doesn't depend on the level of their team, in this moment I prefer to be focused on our team and to try to reach our level, to keep our level and it's the only thing in this moment I'm concerned about."