Cleverley knows people accuse him of not knowing what his best team is
Even ignoring the anticipated alterations for last week’s FA Cup tie, Watford have made a lot of starting line-up changes from game to game in recent weeks.
During a period where they’ve been losing, there's a risk that switching things up too much and too often can have a destabilising effect.
What is it that’s leading Tom Cleverley to rotate players so much?
“I think it’s loss of confidence and form,” he explained.
“I’ve been guilty of it as a fan, watching and thinking ‘he doesn’t know his best team, he should know his best team by now’.
“But when people lose confidence and form you have to play around with it.
“The balance of the team is a real tough one at the minute. We play in a four and we’re struggling to defend our box, we play in a five and we don’t look like we’re going to score that many goals.
“I think bodies through the door will help with that for sure, and there have been a few players that have lost a bit of confidence at the same time.
“When that happens it’s my job to tweak things.
“And that is certainly in-game as well, as we have to adapt to what we saw first half and be able to tweak in-game as well.”
One player who missed out on a starting place at Cardiff was Rocco Vata, who was surely very unlucky given his form over recent weeks.
“Yeah, I spoke to Rocco before the game,” said Cleverley.
“I think with all his improvements it's important he doesn’t lose faith that they’re not getting him where he wants to be.
“He is only 19, he was fantastic when he came on and he was unlucky not to start this evening.
“He has done himself absolutely no harm at all with his performance.
“Rocco’s improvement over the last six months has really, really pleased me and he’s got the attitude and mindset of someone who wants to aim for the top.
“I love working with him.”
After such a dour first half, Cleverley had to make half-time alterations.
“I had to change things before they scored and I knew that was the risk,” he said.
“Even getting the ‘Cardiff nil’, playing like we did in the first, I wouldn’t have got any satisfaction out of it.
“That’s not how I want my teams to play and I cannot criticise the players because that’s how I set them up.
“It was a real priority of mine to be solid, which I felt we were in the first half, but if that’s how we’re going to be solid then it’s not what I’m here for.
“I want to entertain and I want to be successful, and I wasn’t pleased with the first half.”
Watford are rapidly gaining a reputation for being a strong second-half team: that’s fine, but not if the first half is as limp as in Wales.
“The spirit and the environment is healthy and our substitutes all had impact, which shows everyone is willing to have an impact on the performance and result,” said Cleverley.
“We’re really mentally strong when it comes to the end of the games.
“Are we saving ourselves a little bit at the start of games, that is the question.
“We’ve not got a great record of performance in the first half of games, and there’s something in the balance that we haven’t quite found the perfect spot for yet.
“I know how good we are in the last 10 minutes of games, and we have a real sort of strong mentality.”
