Watford head coach Walter Mazzarri believes his new side are ahead of schedule in adapting to their new style of play since his arrival.

Barely six weeks into life with the Hornets, the Italian has already brought the 3-5-2 formation he has championed throughout his career to England, a style which has had only minor success when other Premier League managers have tried to use it in the past.

Coupled with the inevitable settling-in period for any new regime, especially one new to a country, Mazzarri is understanding if his troops take a while to come up to speed with his methods.

The 54-year-old is no stranger to moving between teams - in 15 years of management, Watford are already his eighth club - and, it appears, the one where he has encountered the fewest problems adapting his players to a new style.

Speaking at today's press conference, he said his side had carried out his gameplan "better than I thought" with their opening-day performance against Southampton, where they earned a creditable 1-1 draw.

"Every time I went to a new club, there’s always been new ideas I have to develop for the players," he said. "Everything is new. This usually means that in the first game of the season it is difficult for the team to play football as I intend them to.

"This has happened in Reggina, Napoli and Inter. It depends also on the length of period I arrive before we play.

"But after one month I thought it would have been more difficult for the players than it has been. We have already done better than I thought."

Tomorrow, the Hornets will entertain a Chelsea side with another new man at the helm - Mazzarri's compatriot Antonio Conte - but the head coach is expecting the quality of their visitors' team to outweigh any early-season issues.

"I don’t know whether it will be easier [because Conte is new]," he said. "We know they have a very good team - but we will see after the game how difficult it is for us."