Troy Deeney announced himself properly as a Premier League player with his first top-flight goal here five and a bit years ago. This evening, at the opposite end of the stadium, he addressed Watford's bizarre away form with two contrasting touches of his right foot.

The captain showed he can use it as a sledge hammer to slam home yet another penalty, this time past Joe Bursik, and then showed a wonderful deftness of touch to slide Ismaïla Sarr through to crack in a lovely second. It all happened in the space of four minutes and showed Deeney he can still bend games to his will. He has done it in the past with the sheer force of his personality, particularly in front of the adoring Rookery End, but here he did it away from home with one nerveless moment from 12 yards and one touch of class from a bit further out.

It was kind of fitting the club legend intervened to win this game on a day when another one, Johnny Williams, sadly passed away. The captain is now just six appearances shy of the redoubtable full-back, who sits in ninth in the all-time list, and is closing in fast on Luther Blissett's long-standing league record of 148, being just 17 shy. There is still, judging by the way he is barking orders and driving this team on, plenty of life in the old dog yet.

This is was a very significant win on a few levels. It was the first time this group had strung three wins together this season, the first time they had scored more than two on the road since that fateful day at the end of the last season, and only their third away win in 20 league games. The rest of the league is likely to sit up and take notice if the Hornets, who are up to third, can now start harvesting some points on their travels to go alongside their formidable home form. It takes a togetherness to achieve wins like this and you could see Xisco Muñoz has fostered that by the unified way they finished the warm up and the way they all celebrated Deeney's opening penalty. It's the little things that count. The whole is ever so slowly starting to look greater than the sum of its parts.

It wasn't all plain sailing. Steven Fletcher made things interesting by pulling one back with seven minutes to go and things got a little bit hairy, but you expect that here. You never get an easy ride at this stadium, fans or no fans. Clever use of the bench by Muñoz, coupled with some good old-fashioned game management, helped close out this long overdue win.

It was hard to see it coming in the first half. The game looked like it was heading for a tenth Stoke draw and a fourth goalless draw on the road for the Golden Boys.

There was no lack of energy and a calming sense of solidity about the side in the first 45 minutes. There just wasn't a great deal to warm the cockles on a night when one needed more layers than an onion, but Daniel Bachmann's goal was never under serious threat. Such was the level of organisation in front of him, the Austrian did not have to worry about a shot on target for the third successive half of football. Francisco Sierralta and William Troost-Ekong look like they have been playing together for a long time such is their understanding.

Bursik was hardly rushed off his feet at the other end, although he was forced to make a save when Nathaniel Chalobah played a lovely one-two with Will Hughes and unleashed a rising left-footed drive that Bursik had to claw away. From the resulting corner, there was a very decent shout for a penalty when Rhys Norrington-Davies dragged Adam Masina to the ground. Referee Oliver Langford wasn't having any of it. It was the sort of challenge that would definitely have been checked by VAR in the Premier League.

The Hornets only had 40 per cent of the ball to feed off and were somewhat on the back foot after a very promising opening, so Muñoz had to show a bit of tactical flexibility. He moved Sarr from the left to the right and then to part of a front three while Tom Cleverley and Will Hughes also interchanged positions. Cleverley didn't bat an eyelid and was comfortably the team's best performer in the first half, for the energy he showed alone.

Joe Allen, Stoke's own experienced midfielder, had the best chance of the match just after half-time, arriving late into the box in Cleverley-esque fashion and connecting first time with a cutback from Nick Powell. Bachmann was equal to it and shoved it away with a good two-handed save. Bachmann will have been grateful that it was straight down his throat otherwise it was one-nil to the home side. Allen couldn't have caught it any sweeter.

The game needed a spark and it got it just after the hour. Philip Zinckernagel had just trotted onto the field when lovely interplay around the edge of the Stoke box involving that man Deeney resulted in Sarr bearing down on Bursik. The young keeper did well to smother the effort from the Senegalese forward, but João Pedro was quickest to react, got a toe to it before Bursik could get his hands down and went down under the challenge from the home keeper. João Pedro took the spot-kick in the game between the two sides at Vicarage Road, but there was no chance of Deeney letting him have this one, the striker smashing home his 36th penalty for the club and his 86th Championship goal.

Buoyed by the skipper's sixth of the season, the Hornets opened up, loosened their top button and next thing you knew, Sarr was haring down the inside right after a wonderfully threaded pass from Deeney to round off a patient team move. The club-record signing did the rest, firing across Bursik and into the far corner with pace and precision. It was like the Sarr we saw against Southampton away and Aston Villa and Liverpool at home last season.

Fletcher denied Bachmann a third successive clean sheet on his return to the club where he started his career in this country, but he won't worry about that. It was all about getting a positive result here by hook or by crook. It could be the launchpad the team needs, just like it was for Deeney when he scored here in that first season back in the Premier League.