Roberto Martinez: Leighton Baines injury “a real disaster” for Everton

Under Flores, Watford have had a very busy summer with eleven players joining the club’s survival cause and the arrivals are set to dislodge numerous original promotion-winning squad members.

The manager has also been critical of the way the London club have made it publicly known that they want the 21-year-old England worldwide.

“We were preparing for the Watford game and in training, he blocks the ball and it hits him in exactly the same place where he had surgery”, he told the BBC. I expect a high performance. “I am very happy to lead these players into the Premier League and it will be interesting to see what the response of the team is”.

“He is at a very young age, and sometimes it is incredible to try to justify his age”.

The 21-year-old struggled last year to maintain the standards of his breakthrough season under Martínez.

The game will be remembered for these goals scored by Watford’s Odion Ighalo and Everton’s Ross Barkley seven minutes apart in the second half.

Watford twice stunned Everton only to twice let it slip to start their Premier League campaign in rollercoaster fashion.

But Arouna Kone rescued Everton five minutes from the end with a goal that allowed him to match his tally for the last two seasons combined. “Last season was challenging throughout because of the injury he picked up, which stopped him starting the season, but he always took responsibility and never shied away”. Reinforcements are needed desperately on the evidence from today’s game. Until yesterday. He had to win the crowd over. He misses a good chance and you think it is not going to be his moment.

Jose Jurado found himself free on the left and his cross wriggled across the box through a tangle of legs before Layun hammered into the corner past shellshocked keeper Tim Howard.

“I think it is a great story”. We are going to play against a tough team like Everton, and it is always important to start well, but I have a lot of confidence with the players.

“It is hard to stop everything in the first match”, he said. They showed that these Hornets possess quite a sting, even if they probably need the names on the back of their shirts to identify each other.

“He tried to stay on, he couldn’t and now we’ll see what the extent of the injury is”.