Vakoun Bayo will return to London Colney this week having played little more than 10 minutes of the Ivory Coast’s two World Cup qualifiers – not a bad thing from a Watford perspective as he is the only fit senior striker for this weekend’s home game against Plymouth.

Bayo mainly watched on from the bench as his teammates recorded a 1-0 away win in Burundi before beating Gambia 1-0 at home, results that leave them unbeaten and top of their group in World Cup qualifying.

Edo Kayembe claimed an assist as DR Congo won 2-0 away in Mauritania yesterday.

The midfielder set up Charles Pickel for the opening goal after three minutes, and the victory took them top of Group B in Central African Federation qualifying for the World Cup.

Kayembe also came on for the last half an hour of the 1-0 win over South Sudan on Friday, but Jeremy Ngakia – who was called up by Congo for the first time, didn’t feature in either game.

Egil Selvik was once again an unused substitute as Norway claimed a 4-2 away win in Israel yesterday.

The keeper was also on the bench for Saturday’s game with Moldova.

It was the same story for Francisco Sierralta was an unused substitute as Chile were beaten 1-0 by Paraguay in their World Cup qualifier on Thursday, and again for the 0-0 draw with Ecuador in the early hours of this morning.

The defender now faces a flight back to England of more than 14 hours – ironically, it was before the away game at Plymouth that Sierralta linked up with his country back in November, the timescales meaning he had to get a taxi from Heathrow down to Devon.

Academy goalkeeper Gabriel Ortelli made his debut for Cyprus Under-21s on Monday, coming on as a substitute in the 65th minute of a 3-1 friendly win over Israel at the Stadio Antonis Papadopoulos in Larnaca.

Under-18s striker Nickson Okosun represented Ireland Under-19s in their European qualifiers in Wolfsburg, Germany.

He came on as a second-half substitute in both the 3-0 loss to Finland on Wednesday, and Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Slovenia.

He made his third appearance, again from the bench, in the 1-0 to defeat to Germany yesterday – a result which left Ireland bottom of their European Under-19 Championships qualifying group.

In the same competition, Marat Galajevs played the full 90 minutes as Latvia claimed an impressive 1-1 draw with hosts Italy on Wednesday thanks to an 87th-minute equaliser in the Stadio Ezio Scida in Crotone.

Galajevs featured for the entire game on Saturday as his nation were beaten 2-1 by France, and started yesterday’s 4-1 defeat to Spain, meaning Latvia are bottom of their qualifying group.

Raul Vancea has impressed in the Under-18’s run to the FA Youth Cup semi-final, and he claimed an assist as Romania Under-17s hammered Lichtenstein 10-0 in their European Championship qualifier at Clyde FC’s Broadwood Stadium in Scotland on Saturday.

The defender then played the full 90 minutes as Romania lost their second game 2-0 to Scotland, again at Clyde FC, and yesterday completed his third outing in a 3-0 win over North Macedonia.