With three successive defeats, Hughton knows that results must improve but he believes there are positive aspects to the performances which gives him hope that Forest’s form will soon pick up.
He said: “There is a difference between results and performance, and there are some aspects of the performance in the last three games that I have been happy with, just not the results.
“Of course, the next opportunity is the first opportunity that we have and it is a game that we look forward to.
“We feel that the way to get results is to get that level of performance. I have got to get that balance right and in recent games we haven’t been able to do that.
“I don’t think you can ever argue with the league table, but I am around a group of players that feel we should be doing better than we are doing in regards to results. It is only us as a group of staff and a group of players that can put that right.
“I have seen that determination in training, the spirits have been good and that comes because the margins are not too big. There isn’t any game that we have played in where teams have given us a good beating.
“That is where some of the confidence that we can start picking up results comes from.”
Watford arrive at The City Ground having made a strong start to life back in the Championship, but it is their away form which has dampened that with just one success on the road so far.
But regardless of that, Hughton is well aware of the quality that Watford possess as they travel to Trentside for the first time since the 2015-16 season.
He said: “I expect a team that has a lot of quality, as did Bournemouth. The work that we did on them before the game and what you are looking at is quality all over the pitch, and the same with Watford.
“They showed in their last game they have an ability to score goals. They had a change of formation, they came away from the formation that they started the season with and they can stay in games. We will expect that type of quality.
“One thing is the opposition and another is our own performance. We know that we will have to perform well to get something from the game.”