Nigel Pearson believes that guiding Watford to Premier League survival this season would be the biggest achievement of his career, if he can pull it off.

The head coach made a significant impact when he arrived in December, but recent results have seen the club's encouraging progress stutter and Pearson now needs his team to rediscover the form that saw them claim 14 points from his first seven league games if he wants add a survival with the Hornets to his CV.

Previously the head coach has helped guide the likes of Leicester, Southampton and West Bromwich Albion avoid the drop from difficult positions, but insists this will be his greatest achievement, should he make it happen.

“Let’s hope we are having this conversation at the end of the season, but it would have to be, of course,” he said in an interview with Premier League Productions.

“We are still in a very, very tough situation. From the situation we’ve been in, it’s going to take a real monumental effort by everybody but there is a long way to go.

“I don’t want to look too far ahead. We are going to have to deal with a lot of negative and positive stuff here on in to give ourselves the best chance, so we've got to show an awful lot of resilience.”

Regardless of how difficult the challenge may be, Pearson believes his team is good enough to haul themselves out of danger.

Watford currently sit in 19th position, but are just one point behind those above the relegation zone and the boss knows, with 12 games remaining, there is enough time for them to climb the table yet.

However, if he can, he would prefer to not have to do it as dramatically as he did with Leicester in the 2014/15 season when he steered them to safety, despite them having just 19 points after 31 games.

“I believe we can do it,” he said. “I honestly think that. We’ve got a very good, realistic chance. We’ve got to be able to find a way of functioning as close to maximum as we can even when not at our maximum. It’s a difficult thing to do but that’s what we are trying to do.

“You don’t want to get yourself into a situation where you’ve got to do that. It’s very dangerous to do that. What we mustn’t do is think that we’ve done that there [at Leicester] and so it will work here. It doesn’t work like that."