WATFORD manager Malky Mackay was very pleased with another positive display from his young side at Clarence Park in Saturday afternoon's 2-0 win over St Albans.

At this early stage of pre-season, the focus is more on match action and fitness rather than results - but Malky insisted it was sitll important to do things properly and take your chances when they come.

"I was very pleased today, it was another useful exercise.  St Albans were a good side, well organised and determined to keep their shape which gave us a different type of match from what we saw last week at Boreham Wood.

"It is important that we remain patient and work hard to open them up and we eventually did so.  We scored a couple of nice goals and it was another clean sheet too so we've had a good afternoon."

The pre-season schedule was designed to give Watford a tougher task each week to allow the players to step up both their fitness levels and performance so the St Albans match was a logical step forward.

"Yes", said Malky, "we've taken another step forward and all of the players have got some extra match time in their legs - now we move on to Barnet on Wednesday to face a team who are two levels above St Albans so we'll see what progress we have made."

The only potential bad news on the day was the early loss of Danny Graham to injury although Malky played down too many fears, "He got a bang on the nose so we took him off.  It is too early to say whether he broke it or not because it's still swollen so the doctor will have another look at it tomorrow.

"But, even if it's broken, it's not a big deal.  I played with a broken nose plenty of times in my career and it never held me back!"

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