Watford goalkeeper Ben Foster admits he thought they were down before the arrival of manager Nigel Pearson.

The Hornets were nine points adrift at the foot of the table prior to their home game against Manchester United and the goalkeeper has revealed that he feared the worst.

"When we had nine points just before the Man United game, I didn't want to say it but it almost felt like there was a bit of inevitability creeping in," he said.

"It was almost like it was: 'unlucky again, lads. Unlucky again.' It was always what we seemed to be saying, but it was 2-1 losses, 1-0, very close but unlucky and it was sort of creeping that way really, so fair play to the board because I don't think we've had an English manager here for however long. A long time.

"[There's been] a lot of comings and goings in between that time, so fair play for them to take a step back and really reassess things because it was a huge decision. I think there'll be a lot of teams now rueing that decision because I think if you connect the dots, look at his [Pearson] last job where he was at Leicester, he was the one who put in the ground work before they went and won the league and nobody's really touched him since then, which now people are thinking they should have had a go at it.

"I honestly didn't think they'd bring in an English manager. I think straight away as soon as Quique got sacked we thought we could guarantee it wouldn't be an English guy, everybody would have said the same thing. It was a great decision because we're still going to have games where we lose this season, but the fact is now that everybody's standards are so much higher that it's inevitable that we'll win more games than we'll lose, you have to just because of the extra work the lads are putting in, the extra tackles, the fight, he's got the belief back in the lads."