Watford winger Gerard Deulofeu has said messages of support are helping him with his recovery as he nears fitness in Spain.

The winger has been living with his physiotherapist back in Catalonia during lockdown in order to stay on top of his fitness programme after he was stretchered out of the Hornets' last home game against Liverpool.

During that time he has received plenty of messages of support from colleagues and former team-mates.

"The rehab is perfect," Deulofeu told Sky Sports. "Every day is much better and every day I can do more, my knee is much stronger.

"I received a lot of messages from big teams, big players like Sergio Ramos and Andres Iniesta, I'm really proud about that because in that time I got to see the quality of the people around me.

"I don't know when I'm going to be back playing, but what I do know, is I want to be back 100 per cent and healthy.

"I don't want to be back at 50 or 70 per cent because my career will be long, maybe 10 or 12 more years - so to come back one or two months earlier - I don't want to make a mistake. It was a big injury and I want to do things right."

Deulofeu felt he had improved under Nigel Pearson prior to his injury and has kept in close contact with his team-mates during the league's hiatus.

"I'm now a complete player," he added. "I've had a lot of experience around the world - in Italy, Spain, England - and you can take some of the best things from every club.

"We've been playing well since Nigel came in and personally I was playing well, doing good things in attack.

"Nigel likes my power. We did a lot of counter-attacks with Ismaila [Sarr] and me which was very good for the team.

"I can create a lot for my team and I'm helping them this year, so let's see if we can finish our objectives of staying in the Premier League.

"I've been keeping in touch with the manager and my team-mates, I've been asking questions as I want to know what they are doing and what's happening there."