Defensive shortage leaves Watford manager Marco Silva short on numbers

Watford's defensive crisis has left Marco Silva scratching his head and the fans with a nasty sense of deja vu.

Younes Kaboul is the latest to fall victim to the centre-half curse at Vicarage Road after suffering a hamstring injury at Southampton last weekend.

He joins Sebastian Prodl, Craig Cathcart and Tommie Hoban on the casualty list while Miguel Britos is suspended.

The situation has echoes of the final game of last season when then boss Walter Mazzarri was without six centre-backs for the visit of Manchester City.

That game ended in a 5-0 home defeat, so Hornets supporters could be forgiven for fearing the worst when the same opposition arrive in Hertfordshire on Saturday.

Current boss Silva said: "We analysed what happened last season and we know, for the last game, there were six centre-backs missing through injury.

"Until now I have had to use six centre-backs already in four games - which is not a normal situation - and we tried to sign one more because we know some of the players here have had some problems in the past.

"We want to keep everybody fit, but so far we have not been able to play the same two centre-backs from one game to the next.

"It is important for our team, and our behaviour as a team, that we start to heal everybody.

"Kaboul is a fantastic professional and a really important player for us and an important player to me.

" He knows my ideas and he has fantastic leadership - he's important in our squad.

"Now is the moment to find other solutions; Prodl is out, Britos is banned and Craig is injured. It's the moment to find other solutions to the XI."

Those solutions are likely to include Adrian Mariappa being drafted in alongside Christian Kabasele, with deadline-day signing Molla Wague the only other fit centre-half.

"I need to choose two centre-backs between him, Mariappa and Kabasele," added Silva.

"It's not ideal because we have only been able to work with him (Wague) for one week. In a normal situation we would give him time to learn our style of play - but at this moment maybe we don't have time for that."