In the wake of techincal director Filippo Giraldi stating Watford's first priority was to bring their unavailable players back to the first team set-up, Marco Silva said the club 'knows his opinion' on their consistent battle against injuries and admitted 'frustration' about being unable to solve the situation.

As many as nine first-team players have been missing from Silva's squad at one time or another over the past month, in a pattern which comes close to repeating the farcical number of injuries which plagued the Hornets this time last season.

Despite that, the head coach has been told by Giraldi behind closed doors and now directly via the Watford website that bringing players back to fitness, rather than adding reinforcements, is their priority - and evidently not one Silva shares.

"Of course [it's frustrating]," he said. "It's frustrating for me and everyone. It's a big frustration for our players, they are unhappy at this moment. For me and I think it's for everyone.

"Sometimes when people talk about football, they only see the final part - how the team perform on the pitch.

"For us to be stronger as a team, to improve and grow up, you need to pay attention to everything.

"That's all the details, for the players and the club to grow up. The club know my opinion about everything, and how the details surrounding a team are important.

"It's not only about the pitch, if a player is good technically, if it's the right centre-back or goalkeeper, or striker.

"Everything that happens around them is important, and it's important because if you have all of them available, we are stronger.

"It's easy to understand for six months without them."

There looks to be no respite in the mean time with Nathaniel Chalobah, Will Hughes, Younes Kaboul, Miguel Britos, Kiko Femenia and Isaac Success all still sidelined for tomorrow's game with Southampton and next weekend's trip to Leicester.

Silva himself feels additions are a necessity, although he agrees with Giraldi that the best time to make transfers is during the summer months.

"Everyone understands and knows [we need new players to cover our injuries]. Our fans know, we are talking about five, two weeks ago it was six, before that it was seven. Roberto Pereyra an important player, I've had him for maybe 6 or 7 matches.

"We are a squad and everyone is important to me, we work with all of them. But these are five, six, seven players who are not out for only two weeks, some of them are out for three months.

"If I know next week I'll have not five, but four, I'm sure I'm happier now than I am. I cannot tell you when they are available. I can't tell you because I don't know."