His staff, the players and the fans - they all care about Tom Cleverley
The disappointed Derby fans making their way home and the local media in the press room were all equally bemused: why are Watford celebrating a pretty standard away win so much?
And to the uninformed eye, it would have appeared somewhat unusual for a regulation 2-0 win to have brought such scenes of joy when the final whistle was blown.
One press room colleague was almost apoplectic when his pre-match assertion that ‘Cleverley is under no threat’ wasn’t met with a nod of agreement from this writer.
“But you’re just outside the play-offs, you’ve been pretty rubbish for three seasons and he’s hardly spent a penny” was the very fair and reasoned response to not having his statement backed up by someone who covers the club’s every move.
Similarly, after the game was over, Derby journalists were equally surprised to learn the origins of the song blasted out from the away corner at Pride Park for much of the 90 minutes yesterday.
‘I don’t care about Gino, He don’t care about me, All I care about, is Tom Cleverley’ was the natty little earworm that intrigued the East Midlands media, and when the causation of the song was explained they, too, were equally astonished.
But this is Watford – the club where you are only ever one spilt Espresso away from a bizarre, often embarrassing, decision.
Yesterday’s well-deserved, hard-earned victory means Watford are now just a point behind fifth-placed Blackburn.
A favourable set of midweek results could see the Hornets return to the top six: and let’s remember that they have been in the play-off positions for 48% of the season so far.
That is probably 100% more of the season than many would have hoped, let alone predicted.
What we saw and heard at Pride Park yesterday was a very public, proud and pertinent display of unity between Watford’s players, Tom Cleverley and his staff, and the excellent travelling supporters who once again made their feelings very clear.
They came together to deliver what was, in the current climate, a tour de force.
A victory that only earned the same three points as any other, yet was far more valuable than most.
The players clearly back Cleverley, as was evidenced by the way they lifted themselves out of a five-game winless run yesterday, many playing through pain to secure both an away win and a clean sheet.
The head coach’s staff are right behind him – anyone who saw the celebrations in the dug-out for the second goal can testify to that.
And the Watford fans are firmly in his corner. The name Cleverley rang out around Pride Park time and time and time again yesterday, just for the avoidance of any doubt.
Yet for unambiguous certainty that the man who is serving the club with every bit as much passion, determination and honour as head coach that he displayed in almost 200 appearances as a player, is backed in all quarters, then we need to see ‘the club’ standing shoulder to shoulder with him.
So far in January, you just can’t say they are.
While the arrival and impressive debut of James Abankwah enabled Cleverley to play four at the back with a greater degree of confidence and success, it is a world away from the sort of January transfer window activity that Watford want, let alone need.
Outlining the players you wish to sign and being handed a reserve player (albeit a seemingly good one) from your sister club is like asking your Mum and Dad for a new mountain bike for Christmas and finding your brother’s Raleigh Grifter wrapped up under the tree.
Look at the Watford bench yesterday: an 18-year-old striker from Mali with one cup start and five sub appearances, a 17-year-old who was playing in the FA Youth Cup two days earlier, three players with a combined age of 93, and a back-up goalkeeper who has been highly impressive on loan in the Scottish Championship but has never played a senior game for the club.
Meanwhile, such is the patently obvious need for a more defensive-minded left-back that yesterday Watford played more than an hour with predominantly right-footed player in that position.
Tom Cleverley celebrates with the Watford fans. (Image: PA)
The things Cleverley has spoken publicly about needing in this transfer window are not flights of fancy. They are essentials.
He hasn’t asked for a unicorn, Batman and a couple of Santa’s elves. He has supplied a list of players, the signing of whom either permanently or on loan is within budget, very achievable and deals with all the current shortcomings.
And why is he, press conference after press conference, repeating the need for freshness in his squad, the desire to strengthen and a longing for signings?
Because he’s got a lop-sided, low-cost, threadbare squad to the fringe of the play-offs and he – like his staff, players and the fans – want to have a bloody good go at finishing the job between now and May.
The top four in the table appear to have flown. Nine points clear of the rest, and it’s almost guaranteed that two of them will go up automatically while the remaining pair will be in the play-offs.
But Blackburn, West Brom, Middlesbrough and Watford are then a further four points clear of the field and, with the caveat of that one side which often emerges from the pack, that quartet appear to be fighting for the other two places.
Yesterday West Brom dropped two points at home, Blackburn were beaten at Oxford and Middlesbrough lost to a late goal at Portsmouth.
The teams around the Hornets are holding the door open for them, yet Cleverley isn’t sure if he can step through because he’s currently walking with a transfer window ball and chain around his leg.
Let’s be clear: Cleverley has made mistakes this season. He is very often honest enough to admit them (take the Cardiff calamity in midweek as a recent example) and even the most experienced of bosses – let alone one who hasn’t completed a year in the job – get things wrong right up to retirement age.
However, in the last 10 months he has arrested a slide towards relegation, seen the club’s Player of the Season and Young Player of the Season leave, had three players signed for almost £3m combined who have barely played - and yet has still got Watford in the promotion mix.
You really do have to ask more what he has to achieve in order for his transfer requirements to be backed in the next fortnight.
Yesterday, as he had suggested in his pre-match interviews, Cleverley ditched the defensive and went for a more attacking approach.
Even without the previously ever-present Giorgi Chakvetadze, Watford put their most threatening players in areas of the pitch where they could do the most damage.
New-boy Abankwah made a name for himself inside the first minute, in the referee’s notebook at least, for a tackle on home skipper Nathaniel Mendez-Laing which at the time looked pretty awful but with the benefit of replays appeared far worse than it actually was.
From the resultant free kick Jerry Yates should have hit the target with a header that instead rippled the side-netting – in other games previously that one goes in and Watford are faced with an early setback.
However, not yesterday. It just felt different yesterday.
Less than four minutes on the clock and Kwadwo Baah gets the ball on the right. He knows what he’s going to do; we know what he’s going to do; the Derby defence knows what he’s going to do.
The trouble is, in that mood, Baah is unstoppable.
His cross from the by-line led to some Derby defender pinball before Imran Louza calmly controlled the ball and stroked it into the net.
The little Moroccan is utterly transformed this season. A year ago he was sent out to Lorient on a loan with the strong expectation he’d be sold permanently in the summer.
Twelve months on, he’s an automatic pick – and playing through the pain barrier as well.
Taking him out of the team, sending him to play for the Under-21s and then gradually bringing him back in again so that now he’s the player we saw some seasons ago is something that would have been described as managerial genius had it been the action of someone like, say, Graham Taylor…
Imran Louza in action at Derby. (Image: PA)
Louza’s first touch and subsequent finish was all class, and for once Watford had an early lead: the first away from home inside five minutes since November 2020.
For the next half an hour, Watford were largely untroubled even if they weren’t raining shots on the Derby goal.
Inevitably, a home side will have a spell, and Derby had theirs either side of half-time.
In one attack Mendez-Laing and then Kayden Jackson hit the bar before Jonathan Bond had to tip over an Eiran Cashin header.
Early in the second half Bond excelled again, pushing a Mendez-Laing shot over the target, before Ebou Adams struck a post with a curling shot.
Watford were being pushed back, but could easily have had a second when a corner was cleared as far as Moussa Sissoko on the edge of the D. He let rip with a real rocket which cannoned back on the bar, hit beaten Derby keeper Jacob Widell Zetterstrom on the top of his protective headgear and flew behind for a corner.
As Cleverley said after the game for the first 15 minutes or so after half-time, Watford were at full-stretch and needed respite.
It duly arrived in the 66th minute.
Once again Vakoun Bayo, so often the first terrace target when things go wrong, gave a relentless line-leading performance and played a pivotal role in the second Watford goal.
He got on the end of a hacked defensive clearance from just inside the Hornets box, and held the ball up close to the halfway line.
Sissoko, who had made that clearance, had accelerated forward and overtaken several players from both teams to get himself in space midway inside the Derby half.
Bayo played the ball into his path, and Sissoko stroked a first-time pass for the onside Edo Kayembe to stroke a low shot past the advancing keeper.
A classic and classy counter-attacking goal if ever there was one.
Soon after Bayo did well again, chasing and then dispossessing Curtis Nelson in his own box but Zetterstrom blocked his shot.
With Derby throwing caution to the wind, Watford’s pacy counters were threatening to extend their lead and another move from deep inside their own half ended with Baah running onto a ball on the right of the box only for the Derby keeper to deflect his effort over the bar.
A superb burst of pace down the right from Ryan Andrews almost set up Bayo but Zetterstrom managed to push the ball away from him, and Kayembe sent the follow-up over the empty goal.
By the end, there was no doubt a Watford victory was the correct outcome, and the final whistle brought those jubilant scenes – totally understandable from a Watford point of view, but confusing to the locals.
There wasn’t a bad performance among any of the Hornets players.
Rocco Vata was thrilling to watch once again, but has also clearly learned from the coaching staff about defensive duties as he was back and forth down the flank yesterday.
Many people’s choice for captaincy permanently, Mattie Pollock, wore the armband and was back to his aerially dominant best, while also showing those formative years as a midfielder have given him the confidence to carry the ball out from the back.
Tom Dele-Bashiru made a welcome, and pre-planned, 45-minute reappearance while Sissoko, who replaced him at half-time, gave his best display for some time. His run after his own clearance to collect the pass from Bayo and then set up Kayembe for the second goal was far more like what we hoped we’d see this season.
In all, it was a good old-fashioned away day. Great stuff on the field, vociferous support off it.
There haven’t been enough of them this season, but there will surely be the capacity for more if yesterday’s band of heroes is supplemented by some new faces in key areas.
While we wait to see what happens before February 3 (when the window officially shuts), at least the head coach knows his staff, his players, the fans and the good old Watford Observer ‘care about Tom Cleverley’.
