There is a theme that emerges when you speak at length with Troy Deeney. “I’ve always given myself a target,” he says. Those targets have run throughout his life but never more so than now.

“I’m getting there but, you know what, if it all went tomorrow – what am I leaving? That’s what I am trying to work out. My friend died two weeks ago, killed himself. Scotty was 30. It has stuck with me – if I was to go tomorrow, what is everyone’s lasting impression? That Troy was good for a night out or Troy actually stood for something?

"That’s where my mind is. When I’ve got your attention I will show you another side to me - and that’s when people say: ‘Oh, he’s not just this ruffian from Chelmsley Wood’."

As ever, he has my attention. This is not the first time I have interviewed Deeney, or spoken to him, or found out about his competitiveness – which stretches to an obsession for football trivia and quiz questions - and compulsive need to prove people wrong. But he appears more assured now, something he agrees with, and with a far greater sense of belonging.

Like his late friend, Deeney is also 30 and life has changed a lot in recent months. He has split from his wife, he has stopped gambling and all but given up alcohol. He has lost 14kg in weight and set himself fresh targets at Watford - the short-term one of helping the club reach the FA Cup final by beating Wolverhampton Wanderers on Sunday, and a longer one of earning a new contract to end his career there.

In recent months, Deeney has split from his wife, stopped gambling, lost 14kg in weight and all but given up alcohol credit: PAUL GROVER

“My focus was that everyone has written me off,” Deeney says. “So my thoughts were: ‘Oh, you don’t think I can do this?’ I had a point to prove. Then, just before Christmas, I was told I was 100 games or something behind Luther Blissett and I liked the idea of that.

“So now that’s my interest. Imagine if I can make a bit of history? I came here at 22, skinny, big head, didn’t know anything about anything, messing about, doing what I was doing. I had a disastrous first year under Malky Mackay, then Sean Dyche tried to sell me for Lukas Jutkiewicz, I was going to go to Coventry and that fell through. I thought: ‘Right, I’ve got to make this work.’"

“If you look at that start to where I am now – I’m what, fourth, in the club's all-time goal-scorer list? That’s some story. So now it's like - and excuse my language - f--- it, why not try and get another deal to get there and then I own all the records? If I fall short, I fall short. But why not try? Let’s make a legacy.”

Deeney has previously described himself as “Mr Watford”, a tag that suits him. He is aware that during years of change at the club - with managers and players coming and going with, at times, dizzying regularity - he has become the constant; the touchstone. Everyone knows when he is around, not least at the training ground, where his presence dominates.

Deeney is a great talker, but he is also a reader - he started Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’ last week, interested in how it helps teach avoidance of conflict - and is forever seeking self-improvement. He is seeing a psychologist, admitting that he has struggled with "anger issues", compounded by the death of his father, Paul, from cancer in 2012. Trying not to "let that devil creep up" has become one of his life missions.

“When I started with the psychologist, it was more about learning how to grieve,” Deeney explains. “It’s well-documented I lost people. I buried my dad and a couple of days later I went to jail [for three months in 2012 for affray]. The build-up of anger happens and I could not grieve because I had to take care of things. When I went to prison it’s like, ‘I’ve got to go into survival mode’. That sounds really dramatic but it was literally how my mind was working.

Deeney was posied to leave Watford for Leicester in 2016 but signed a new five-year contract credit: REUTERS

“I saw the psychologist on Friday and he said my biggest asset or weakness is I can take myself out of me, look up and work out what's working. The problem is I over-think and make up scenarios which are not real. But now I am getting older and more confident, I have the ability to say ‘sod it, this is me’."

That has not always been the case. A crucial point was reached in 2016 when Leicester City, the Premier League champions, tried to sign him. It appeared he wanted to go but eventually he agreed a new five-year contract at Watford. He admits now that the “numbers” involved in that deal changed his life and distracted him, although it also coincided with the appointment of Walter Mazzarri as Watford’s new head coach. They did not get on.

“I’ve been complacent at times, I’m not going to lie,” Deeney says. “When I signed my big deal, there was no longer the pressure to, say, buy my mum a house and do all the things I wanted to do. The danger is you drift and start thinking: ‘Sod it, I’m still getting paid’. That’s where I came back last season under Marco Silva and thought: ‘I’m going to give this a real go but if we don’t get on I’m going to leave’. We did get on but I got injured and thought ‘maybe this is not meant to be’. I was also drinking."

Again Deeney took stock. Last summer Deeney’s mother, Emma, re-married and there was an abrupt wake-up call during the wedding reception.

“My uncle Dave called me fat and it struck a nerve; maybe because I’ve got so much respect for him. Since then I have lost 14.5 kg and just got the enjoyment for it again,” Deeney says.

“I’m more in control. I basically gave up drinking, although there will be set occasions – during international breaks – when I will have a beer. It’s a test to myself. The gambling I gave up 100 per cent. I only used to bet on the golf, but the gambling is done. And now it’s ‘how do I control the anger’? How do I control that but keep the 'Troy' element that keeps me a footballer.”

Deeney has earned a reputation for straight-talking in recent years credit: PAUL GROVER

Deeney may have found his ideal manager in the intuitive Javi Gracia, who imposes boundaries and targets but is also aware of his players' needs. Deeney, for his part, is happy to oblige and is now working harder than ever. He takes particular pride in being able to beat his team-mate Ken Sema, five years his junior, in sprints during training.

Football is not, for Deeney, a romantic pursuit. He enjoys playing the game but seems to take more pleasure in its earthier elements - on the pitch his biggest asset is his strong personality and how he imposes himself on the opposition. Off it, he is not afraid to stir the crowd, both his own and the opponents'.

It is apt, for example, that he refers to the forthcoming fixture between Watford and Arsenal as the “Cojones Cup” because he once accused them of lacking, well, cojones. No-one, he says, suggested he was wrong at that time but, hypocritically, they did suggest he was wrong to say it. “Because I was still playing and they were like, what if Watford lose next week? I just think: ‘Well, say I was c--p then, go on’,” Deeney explains.

It is part, as he sees it, of gaining an edge but also of being honest. That unflinching attitude marks him out as different in football, an industry he never idolised as a child.

“This was never my dream," he says. "My dream was to be a fireman. My younger brother Ellis dreamt of being a Premier League player. He played for Villa from 16 to 20 and he was the ‘dog’s’. But circumstances changed. I ended up being in this situation and being the kind of person I am I thought: ‘Right, this has to be the dream now.’

“I knew could probably earn £500-a-week [at his first club Walsall]. And that’s all I wanted. Then the target became buying a house in Chelmsley Wood, then I was the man. And houses there cost about £120,000. That was my end goal."

The contrast with Ellis is instructive. "He still plays. We are completely different characters but if I ever went to war with someone I’d take my brother with me. But because he’s so good at everything he never stays true to one thing. I am not so talented but I do what I know will support my family.

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“Even the people who hate me back home – and I have a colourful past – they will say: ‘No matter what, he was always running on a Sunday morning’. Even when I was out Saturday night. I did more than everyone, always, and that was the difference between me and my brother. In terms of natural ability he is far better me. In terms of wanting it more it’s the other way around."

And now he will lead Watford out at Wembley hoping to return there for the final and win the club its first-ever trophy. That would be another record; another part of his legacy.

"There are not many people who want things more than me,” Deeney says. “And I am quite good at re-assessing goals: I’ve done that, what else can be done?”