Reaction: TC's Post-Cardiff Thoughts

Tom Cleverley admitted that he was not content with the performance in Watford's 1-1 draw away at Cardiff City, although he was pleased with the resilience shown by his side to come back from a goal down.

Vakoun Bayo headed home a late equaliser to earn the Hornets a point at the Cardiff City Stadium, ending a run of four successive defeats in the process.

Although his side added a point to their tally for the first time since Boxing Day, the Head Coach explained his frustration at the showing of his players in South Wales.

“Taking the result alone, it stops the rot,” Cleverley said. “The performance was not so pleasing.

“The priority going into today’s game was to be defensively solid, to be in the game for as long as possible, and hopefully get that clean sheet we have been waiting for.

“At half-time you would have thought all those objectives were achieved, but I wasn’t pleased with the type of team we saw, and I will take responsibility for that.

“We didn’t look like a team with any ambition to win the game. I would have shut the curtains if it was in the back garden - we forgot to play football.

“The impact of substitutes shows you what great spirit we have got here - a mental resilience to keep going towards the end.

“We stopped our losing run in the league, but there are a lot of areas to improve on tonight.”

The former Watford captain added that the performance saw a reoccurrence of a trend where there is an imbalance in favour of defence or attack, with the players struggling to find that sweet spot.

“We knew in the second half, with going for it a little bit more, we always leave ourselves a little bit vulnerable,” he added. “It was the exact story of our season.

“We want to try and commit more numbers forward, and be able to go to that four, but we are just too defensively vulnerable at the minute to do so.

“When we are gaining something, we are losing something else at the minute, and that is the moment we are in. We didn’t look the most confident team.

“We are going through a difficult patch - it is a real good learning curve for me, as the coach, that if we focus on one thing, fair credit to the players, they are giving it that, but then our focus turns away from something else.

“To be a more complete team, a more complete coach, a more complete footballer, you have to continue to work hard, and that’s what we’ll do.”

In addition to hard work, Cleverley believes some reinforcements to the squad in the January transfer window will prove a big help as he looks to guide his side out of this slump in form.

On what might reinvigorate the Golden Boys, he said: “I think we might just need a little bit of freshness in the building. I am hoping some fresh faces can give us that extra boost from now on until the end of the season.

“Sometimes in January, it is not just the quality of the player you bring in, but people coming in with a fresh mindset.

“It is a relentless league, so any sort of boost [brought from] people full of energy is sometimes just as important as bringing quality in.

“We have got very clear targets, and we are all working hard to be able to execute that because, with absolutely all respect to the players that have got us into this position, sometimes it is not just the added quality that can help you.

“[There will be] possibly one in [before the weekend].”

Finally, the Head Coach was once again full of praise for the Watford faithful after the 487 who made the long trip to South Wales on a Tuesday night sang his name at full-time.

“I will never, ever, take the backing I have from the supporters for granted,” Cleverley said. “It really does drive me on.

“I don’t want to sound too cheesy, but it is that kind of support that gets you up at daft o’clock in the morning, to keep going, to keep driving, to keep having a burning ambition to take the club forward. 

“I hope the players feel supported as well, because even though it is my name they are singing, the players are the ones who are putting the performances in.

“Although tonight wasn’t our best one, they kept going right to the end, so I really appreciate the support that me and the players have got.

“We really do feel it, and it is keeping us going.”