Neal Ardley said the reception he received from Watford’s fans at Saturday’s pre-season friendly against AFC Wimbledon “warmed my heart” and expects his former club to make some more signings before their Premier League campaign gets underway.

The versatile former midfielder has been manager of the League 2 club for approaching three years following a 16-year playing career which included making more than 100 appearances for the Hornets between 2002 and 2005.

Asked how he thought his former club would fare in the top-flight following the 2-2 draw, the former Wimbledon, Cardiff City and Millwall player responded: “I think Watford will be doing a lot of work between now and the start of the season.

"The manager, you’ve got to remember, he’s come in, he’s got to find out a bit about the players, he knows what he wants to do and how and I think Watford will be making a few more signings over the course of the next few weeks and the manager will shape the team how he wants.

"I wish them all the best because it’s always very, very tough to bridge that gap when you first go up.”

When Ardley arrived at Vicarage Road, the club were in a very different financial position to what they are now as he recalled when asked to reflect on his time with Watford.

“I think we had the problems of the 12 per cent pay cut and stuff at that point,” Ardley recalled. “I look back and it was off the back of the Vialli era, ITV Digital had collapsed and there was a lot of financial problems around the place but I had two-and-half seasons there, we got to two semi-finals in the cups and brought in some valuable revenue and stabilised the club.

“I’m proud of what we achieved, I really enjoyed it there, it was a family club. I’ve said in the programme notes today it’s slightly changed, it’s a little bit more international now but so is the Premier League and hopefully that will stand them in good stead.”

Ardley likes the way the Pozzo family have built up the club in tandem with the team since taking over Watford - “It’s the way it should be and it’s great” - before he added: “And do you know what? I really enjoyed walking across today and I had a nice round of applause from the fans because when I did leave it was sort of on strange terms with what was going on at board level. But I never once had any dig at any of the fans because I loved the club and I loved my time there.

“It was more about how I was being handled behind the scenes, so I’m really pleased that I got a round of applause and that warmed my heart.”