Aidy Boothroyd admits the decision to offer Watford's Marlon King an improved contract last summer was a major factor in causing unrest.King, who signed for Wigan in the January transfer window, was offered a huge pay-rise in an attempt to persuade him to stay at Vicarage Road and Boothroyd believes this prompted more players to seek improved contracts.

Boothroyd told the Watford Observer: "I probably shouldn't have offered Marlon King the contract I did. Whenever you reward people everybody thinks they should be getting the same amount of money.

"You go from a club that's in the back water to a team in the Premiership and all of a sudden everybody thinks they should be getting zeros on the end of their pay packet and we haven't really achieved anything."

He added: "If anybody wants to go then I will let them go from now on. I don't want anybody here who doesn't want to be here for the cause. The biggest mistake I would say is that I should have let Marlon go."

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