The return of Quique Sanchez Flores has restored confidence to Watford, according to defender Craig Dawson.

Speaking after the Hornets' 2-2 draw with Arsenal on Sunday evening, the former West Brom man claimed the side had been struggling with their self-belief after a torrid start to this season's Premier League, but he believes their performance over the weekend demonstrated they are heading in the right direction.

"It's been a tough start," said Dawson.

"It's hurt the players and it was great to see the confidence back today and hopefully we can take that into the next game, and the next game after that, and just keep building as a group of players.

"At half-time he [Sanchez Flores] just told us to keep working hard and probably gave us a little bit more confidence to go out there and express ourselves and I think that showed in the second-half.

"We created a lot of chances and on another day we could've come away with three points. It was a positive performance, so hopefully we can build on that going forward."

Despite a new coach arriving just four games into his Watford tenure, Dawson believes the change is a good one for the club.

However, with an away game against champions Manchester City waiting for the Hornets this weekend, the centre-back knows they will have to be at their best in order to get anything from the trip to the Etihad.

"It's obviously difficult when the manager departs," he added.

"But the new manager's come in now and had a great week on the training pitch and everybody's working really hard - I think you could see that today, the fight, the belief, the passion was all there and hopefully we can just improve on today's performance.

"That's modern football at the minute - as players you've just got to work as hard as you can for each manager. It's a tough game coming up, but hopefully we can do well.

"The manager believes we can win every single game and that's the attitude we take into every game. It's going to be a tough game, we know that - we'll have to be at our best and hopefully we can be."