Matej Vydra is as good – if not better – than the player who left Watford 17 months ago according to his good friend Daniel Pudil.

Vydra’s 22 goals for the Hornets during the 2012/13 campaign earned him a move to the Premier League on loan at West Bromwich Albion.

But the Czech Republic international only scored three goals in 25 outings for the Baggies, making just seven starts.

He returned to Vicarage Road in the summer – again on loan from Udinese – but after scoring on his debut, failed to find the net in his next six games for club and country and struggled to impress.

But Vydra appears to be back to his best. He has scored five goals in his last seven league games and is excelling in Slavisa Jokanovic’s new 4-3-2-1 formation, playing behind the lead striker.

Pudil said: “If you don’t play properly for a season, it’s difficult to get the rhythm back straight away.

“It takes maybe five or six games and in that time people were saying he wasn’t the same as before.

“You can see now though he is the same, if not better. The Premier League has given him a taste and he wants to play in it again.

“He has to work a little bit more and take us to the Premier League.”

Pudil knows Vydra as well as anyone at Watford after the striker briefly lived with his teammate during both of his spells at the club.

He said Vydra does not like to play in a similar striking role to Troy Deeney, with his back to goal, and prefers to receive the ball to his feet or to run in behind the opposition defender.

The left-back revealed he told the forward to remain calm and play for the team if he wanted to start scoring again.

Pudil explained: “He had to be patient. Everyone knows Matej is a good player and if he has a chance to score, he normally will. He needed a little bit of confidence and needed to be calmer.

“When he doesn’t score he is quite angry with himself and he starts to blame himself. I talked to him and told him ‘be calm, play for the team and if you do that you will score’.

“It’s all about confidence though. He is sharp now and hopefully he will score more than the six he has got so far.”

Watford midfielder Daniel Tozser believes Vydra also realised he had to work a little harder to recapture his form.

Tozser and Pudil are good friends after they both played for Racing Genk in Belgium for several years and it has resulted in Tozser getting to know Vydra well.

Tozser said: “We have spoken to Matej because he is young and the future is ahead of him.

“It has not been easy for him to adapt. He was the Player of the Year in the Championship two years ago and scored plenty of goals. He then went to the Premier League and when he came back here, maybe he thought in the beginning that it would just come back quickly but he then he realised what he had to do.”

He continued: “Matej is a good worker and likes to work on practising so he realised that he needed hard work as well [as his talent], and that success wouldn’t just come day-by-day. He knew this [already] but maybe he thought it would be easier than it was.”

“He is one of the best strikers in this league; there is no question. He is a great talent,” Tozser added.