Ian Wright believes Troy Deeney is integral to the way Watford play and has backed the Hornets captain to continue scoring in the Premier League.

The Arsenal legend, who scored more than 300 goals during his club career, also admires Odion Igahlo’s qualities as a striker and feels it is important the Golden Boys made a strong start to life in the Premier League.

The 52-year-old was at Vicarage Road on Saturday as one of the guests for BT Sport’s Fletch and Sav show and the broadcaster’s live coverage of Watford’s last-gasp 2-1 defeat to Manchester United in which Deeney scored his third goal in four games, firing home a late penalty after Odion Ighalo had been fouled by Marcus Rojo.

The Watford Observer was invited to spend the morning behind the scenes of the show, hosted by Darren Fletcher and Robbie Savage, and spoke to Wright before the match about the Hornets’ top-flight season to date and their forward pairing.

“I’m very impressed with their [Watford’s] start,” Wright said. “I think the start they’ve made they’ve had to make it because what we’ve seen in the past is that teams who do come up, they have a problem in and around Christmas then afterwards, that kind of hump where teams do start to work them out.

“I think with (Etienne) Capoue, he’s finding his form now and we’re seeing the kind of form that Tottenham signed him for and Watford are doing well out of that.”

The former England striker continued: “They do need to find goals from other areas but the front men are a handful. Hopefully [they’ll be] no injuries to them because Troy’s a handful, I think Ighalo’s fantastic - left foot, right foot, pace, always threatening in behind; no defenders and no teams like to see that. If they can continue to do that they will continue to cause teams problems.”

Deeney was to score his 84th goal in all competitions for Watford on Saturday and assessing his qualities beforehand, Wright commented: “Troy’s very unselfish in the way he gives his body up, he gives himself up for the team. He’ll do anything he can to retain possession and get it back in play, get it into Ighalo. Quite a few of Ighalo’s goals, Troy Deeny’s had a hand in them. He’s been integral to what’s going on with Watford.

“As much as if Ighalo got injured it’s obviously going to be a massive blow, but Troy Deeney getting injured would be a real devastating blow for them. Hopefully they can stay fit because I think he’s in the mould of the old fashioned centre forward. He just wants to make sure that he holds it up and keeps the play going because that’s integral to Watford and the way they play.”

There have been suggestions of an England call-up for the Hornets’ talismanic skipper but Wright said: “I think Troy just wants to, like he’s said and he’s said it very well, score goals in the league and show people that he deserves to be here.

“If people start to throw England call-ups around Troy, just let him get on with what he’s doing in the Premier League and I think he’s doing it pretty well.

“I think he’s been very unfortunate with some of the chances. I think he could have had a few more goals by now but we know that he’s capable simply because of his record coming into this league. As time goes by, the more they beat teams, the more confidence they get, I’m sure Troy will score more goals.”