TC On Fan Connection: "We Are Together"

Tom Cleverley believes there is a feeling of togetherness between Watford fans and the club which has been absent in recent years, as preparations for the midweek trip to Cardiff City on Tuesday (January 14, 7.45pm KO) ramp up.

The Hornets took a following of more than 4,300 to Craven Cottage on Thursday night for the Emirates FA Cup third-round tie with Fulham, with the supporters in fine voice despite the 4-1 defeat.

This reverse was the club’s fifth in six matches, with Cleverley urging a continuation of the fans' connection despite the difficult run of results on the pitch.

On the importance of this support, he said: “I commented on social media, [in my] first post for a long time. It [the support at Fulham] genuinely made me proud to be the Head Coach of this club.

“The run we’re on is a time where everyone in the club has to stick together and that’s fans, staff, players, club, and it’s a really important time for us to do that.

“In the past I’ve seen where chanting can be sarcastic, but it wasn’t.

“That made me feel like, one, the numbers we travelled in, but two, the manner of the support, was very, very pleasing.

“It shows that we are together, and trust me, me and the players feel that.”

The FA Cup action meant there is a nine-day gap between Sky Bet Championship matches for the Golden Boys, with Cleverley using this period to look back on the season as a whole.

“This break from the league has given me a real bit of thinking time,” he explained. “A bit of reflection.

“Obviously, the defensive record is something we need to improve.

“I think my first 14 games as the Head Coach we had eight clean sheets, now why has that dropped to only four in the next 24?

“There’s been a number of reasons we’ve highlighted and have to improve on, so I’d like to start with a solid foundation of improving our away form.

“As a staff, we’ve had to look at ourselves, the kind of words we use, the kind of drills we do. The focus has to be on becoming more resilient defensively, and it has been.

“I’ve done a big reflection process of myself, but the players still have to take some responsibility that there’s been a drop of form in a couple of key areas.

“Obviously losing your captain from last year, your player of the season, has an impact, but I feel like we still have the players in the building that we should be doing a lot better.”

As a result, a clean sheet is top of the priority list for the visit to the Cardiff City Stadium, although the former Watford captain is wary of playing too defensively.

On the conundrum of how to set up away, Cleverley added: “You don’t want to approach it with a negative mindset but there has to be a resilient mindset.

“Sometimes that isn’t always free-flowing football and focusing on how we are going to score, which is how I like to do my coaching. 

“A clean sheet would [make it] a really, really pleasing night for me.

“I think in 29 games we’ve played this season we’ve scored in 24, so that’s not the issue for me, so I would be very, very pleased with a clean sheet.”