This week Troy Deeney let slip details of the system of fines introduced by Javi Gracia this season. “They used to be done by the players,” he said. “This year the gaffer took charge and he’s made it so all the fines are very steep and nobody’s messing about. I think everybody likes their money too much.” By way of example he said that latecomers to training are now penalised at the eyebrow-raising rate – even if it still is not the stiffest such penalty in the division – of £100 a minute.

“I think the group needs discipline,” says Gracia, who has alsoramped up fines for a variety ofoffences including missing physiotherapy appointments and not turning up for yoga. “For me it’s most important to convince the players we don’t need the rules. If we have good behaviour, if all of you are thinking in the same way, we don’t need the rules. Then it’s perfect. But you need to show them the way and they have to respect that. If one of them makes a mistake then they pay, but the objective is not to take away money. The objective is they respect the rules.”

Watford have won all four of theirleague games, using a team composed almost exclusively of players who wereat the club a year ago, and with the same manager who oversaw the final 15 games of the last campaign without great success. But it is a squad, and a manager, in many waystransformed, utilising a different formation, pressing higher and faster, more disciplined off the pitch and on it.

“Last year was a little bit strange because when he came in we were in a difficult position,” says Abdoulaye Doucouré, the midfield linchpin. “This season he started with all the team, he had the pre-season, he can make all the changes he wants. The manager is very [focused on] the details. So he made this shape, 4-4-2, and I think it is the best shape for Watford, and of course we’ve conceded less goals than last year. This year we’re concentrating on being very close together [on the pitch], to be more clinical on the counterattack, to score more goals and concede less.”

Gracia was appointed in January with the team in freefall as Marco Silva’s spell unravelled ignominiously, and was thrown into the pell-mell pandemonium of the English mid-season, one he faced with the added complication of an injury crisis. “When I arrived for my first training session, I remember there were 15 players injured or out of the team,” he says. “And it’s not easy to manage that situation. Back then I can’t say I prefer to play this way or the other way. The most important was to see the players I have. And with these players, what can I do? We needed points, and I tried to look for the way.”

Javi Gracia poses with his coaching staff after winning the Premier League manager of the month award for August. Photograph: Tony Marshall/Getty Images for Premier League

The Spaniard experimented with a variety of formations and permutations. His team played with three at the back and with four, with Tom Cleverley in the middle or on the left, with Richarlison on the left or in the middle, with Troy Deeney as the lone striker or with Andre Gray. On one occasion, just for an hour, he tried both strikers together. This season the starting XI has not changed, with Roberto Pereyra and Will Hughes deployed, curious as the concept sounds, as narrow wide midfielders, and Deeney and Gray in partnership.

“Time is the most important thing,” Gracia says. “When I arrived we only had three or four days to prepare for the next game. Pre-season was very good for the players, for me, to know each other more and to prepare for the competition. Time together is the key, because training is the only time when you can improve the level of the players, the level of the team.”

Statistics demonstrate the scale of the transformation wrought by Gracia’s coaching. Their attacking threat is largely unchanged: they have, on average, had less possession than during Gracia’s spell in charge last season, played fewer passes, made the same number of clear chances and had a near-identical number of shots (only 18% of them went in last season, a figure currently at an unsustainable 48%). His key changes have come in defence: they make more tackles, have hugely increased the number of interceptions, allow around half as many shots on target and concede about half as many goals.

Their pressing is excellently organised and in certain situations, such as when opponents have throw-ins in their own half, extremely aggressive.

“We have a different squad,” Gracia says. “Maybe I am a different coach, because I try to change day by day. I don’t want to waste time waiting to see what happens. I want to look for something, to look for a way to improve, a way to do better today than yesterday.”

With Saturday’s visit of Manchester United and a trip to Arsenal sandwiching a visit to Fulham, Watford’s 100% record is unlikely to survive a second month. “I’m sure there will be a moment when we lose and then it will be important for us to have got points before,” Gracia says. “To focus only on the next game is the best mentality for me, for the players and the club. To think only about the present is the way to achieve a better future as well.”