The Hornets are 12th with just two wins from eight games under the former Sheffield United boss. On Wednesday night the team fell to a 3-1 defeat at home to Cardiff City, despite taking the lead.

Wilder in a wide-ranging post-match press conference spoke of his future with a deal at Watford until the end of the season. He took the job at the Vicarage Road side at a time when he was strongly-linked with the Aberdeen job. Now he is the bookies’ favourite to replace Robbie Neilson at Hearts.

“I’m not going to talk about myself. It’s not about me or what I’m going to do next year,” he said. “All I know is it’s a really good club with a lot of good people. Great training ground, great facilities, fabulous ground, and a down-to-earth passionate fanbase that wants to see a team. I’m not going to get caught up in any of that regarding me, I don’t think it’s right at this particular moment to talk about my future.”

Wilder accused his team of wanting to "do their own thing" after going 1-0 ahead against Cardiff, while he referenced the part Ryan Porteous played in a goal conceded in a recent draw with Coventry City even though the former Hibs star did set up the first with a fine pass.

“People are playing out of position, hitting cross-field balls, and you lose your rhythm quickly," he said. Basically, you say to the opposition ‘there you go, there’s an opportunity to get back into the game’. And they took it. We gave a daft free kick away and we can’t defend set pieces.”

On errors, he added: “We were absolutely cruising at 2-0 at Coventry and the punters start going ‘ole ole’ and I’m thinking ‘no please, no oles, I want us to get 3-0 up’. I want Ryan Porteous to head one straight back, I don’t want him to head it down. I don’t want one of my midfield players to go and play on the right wing, I don’t want my centre forward to go and get it off the centre halves. I want us to play as a team.”

Hearts job favourite & Aberdeen-linked Chris Wilder addresses future, Watford struggles, Ryan Porteous

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