Ben Foster and other senior Watford players have been making sure the younger members of the squad understand what it will mean when they face Luton Town this weekend.

Saturday's game will be the first Watford Luton derby since April 2006, when a young Foster featured in a 1-1 draw at Vicarage Road.

The goalkeeper is the only player from that game to still be playing today and he remembers the clash as being "a bit naughty".

While Foster fully acknowledges that the atmosphere will not be anywhere near as exciting without supporters in the stadium, he has had a number of people reminding him just how important the fixture is in the run up to the match.

"The only thing I really remember from the games were them being scrappy and the atmosphere being a bit naughty to be honest," he said. "It was good. I do remember enjoying it because when I first signed for Watford, I didn't know it was such a big rivalry with Luton and it genuinely is, considering there's quite a distance between the teams.

"Even now, in the build up to Saturday, I'm getting messages on Twitter and Instagram saying: 'Fozzy come on you're the only that's played in it, please get them up for this game'. It hits home how much it means to fans. Obviously from my point of view, we approach it with the same sort of professionalism as the manager would get his lads set up for any other game. We know that we're the team probably the favourites to win the game, we're at home, so we want to win the game, simple as that.

"When you've got the fans there, it breeds a much more fierce derby, it has to. You've got so much more adrenaline when they're there. But we can bring our own energy like we have to do. We've got a few players coming back into contention, the likes of Troy [Deeney] and Ismaila [Sarr] and they're the players we need. Troy particularly to get the lads going. I'll do what I can, Tom Cleverley, players like that, the experienced players, Craig Cathcart - we can do as much as we can do to create that buzz for us.

"We have been talking about it a bit this week. We've got a lot of young lads like Domingos Quina, he doesn't know much about the Watford Luton derby and we have to tell them that this is a big old game."

One person who expects Watford to give their all this weekend is head coach Vladimir Ivic, whose all or nothing policies have set a very high standard for the players.

Having worked with the Serbian for a couple of months now, Foster said his methods are starting to be appreciated.

"He's grown on me a lot, I like his style of how he does things," said the goalkeeper. "He's not the most personable manager, he's not going to put an arm around you and tell you everything's going to be alright, he will tell you cold hard facts and I think that's got its time and its place and I actually really like it.

"He's a very demanding manager. He doesn't take no for an answer, he doesn't take not putting the effort in, it's as simple as that, it's black and white. One thing he keeps saying to us, and it's very clear, is that there's no grey area, no matter what it is, whether it's winning games, training on a Tuesday, it's black and white, there are standards that you have to adhere to, the bar is set really really high as well and that's all there is to it.

"That's an easy way forward because you know what's expected of you and if you fall short of it, that's you done, you're out the team and rightly so."

The Hornets go into the derby off the back of a win and a draw in their opening two fixtures.

While Foster is not too displeased with those results, he insists they have to adapt quicker if they want to win the more difficult matches and mount a serious promotion challenge.

"Against Wednesday we were disappointed not to get the three points, but it was a tough place to go," he said. "They let the grass dry out and left it long and playing there you've got to use whatever tactics you can use. We need to get a bit smarter when playing teams like that to really hit the ground running. It took us about an hour to work out how to play the conditions, but we'll evolve as we go along."