Watford defender Sebastian Prodl has claimed he 'suffered' a lot during his time out, after starting his first Premier League game since April 2018.

The Austrian claims he was 'out of favour' with Javi Gracia following a falling out with the former coach, as well as having his fair share of injury problems.

However, the defender claims he never gave up on his goal of returning to play for the Hornets.

"It felt good personally, I'm blessed and glad to be back in competition at Watford," he said.

"I suffered a lot the last couple of months, with injury, with comebacks, also with being out of favour, I have to admit it.

"I put on my goals that I want to be back for Watford in the Premier League, especially in this very very weird and difficult situation, get back with my experience to help the team out with clean sheets, working hard and putting that work load in."

On his first start in the division since Huddersfield away the season before last, the Hornets collected their first clean sheet in 20 matches in a 0-0 draw with Sheffield United, which marked a step forward for the team.

Despite that, Prodl was still disappointed with the outcome of the game and insists they should have won.

"I think in terms of defending we did well today," he added.

"In terms of scoring I think we can improve but we knew it was going to be a difficult game, we have to admit that it's a disappointing result, but on the other hand I think we showed some improvement as well.

"As a group to defend, I think we always had six, seven, eight players were defending, we had to take a lot of crosses from Sheffield, especially in the first half and we defended them well.

"I think the commitment and defensive work was the key to get the clean sheet. But on the other hand we missed some players up front to get this counter working as we wish we had done."