Cleverley not letting late equaliser cloud his pleasure at performance
Tom Cleverley was full of praise for his Watford side as they came away from Sunderland with a 2-2 draw that would have been a win but for an 89th-minute equaliser.
And while those closing few minutes changed the course of the game, the head coach spoke warmly of his team which surprised many with what they showed at the Stadium of Light.
“I thought for 60 or 65 minutes we were excellent,” said Cleverley.
“We really took control of the game with possession and didn’t create too many chances for that, but I did feel a real sense of control.
“We did a good job of frustrating the home crowd and on the balance of the game I felt we deserved to lead.
“Things can get clouded a little bit because they had the best chances of the game in the last 10 minutes.
“And that is the part of the game I’m really disappointed about, because we are better than that at managing games.
“I remember we did a piece of work on it after the Oxford game, and how we could see out games better.
“We’ll have to revisit that as we were nowhere near good enough in the last 10 minutes.”
That both goals came from poorly-defended corners was the main point of frustration.
“Goals conceded from two set pieces and you can pick the bones out of both, and look at who is accountable and who has lost their man,” said Cleverley.
“But I think we can improve as a team on our mindset, how alert we are, are we on our toes.
“Are we really prepared to be resilient to defend the set piece?
“Those are the things we can improve upon as a team.
“But I don’t want to get caught up in the negatives from today, even though it does feel like we’ve lost two points rather than gain one.
“There were a lot of positives: we’ve had a week full of controversy as you know, and I thought the debut of Mamadou Doumbia has hopefully settled a lot of people as I was confident we had a capable No.9 in the building.
“Mamadou certainly proved that today.”
