The one spell of last night’s game at Portman Road when Watford looked uncomfortable was in the final 20 minutes of the first half.

Having kept Ipswich relatively quiet until then, the Hornets were pushed back and Dan Bachmann had to make one excellent save and deal with a flurry of long-range shots.

Interim head coach Tom Cleverley said it was something he and his coaching staff had to fix at half-time.

“I thought we lost our way a bit towards the end of the first half. When momentum grows at this ground it’s hard to change,” he said.

“We put that right at half-time by demanding a bit more intensity in challenges and second balls, and then we showed real courage to dominate the ball in large parts of the second half.

“I just wanted us to commit to one thing or the other. I felt we were sort of in between playing out from the back and being direct.

“And we were in between going for the high press or just being solid.

“I wanted us to be committed to one or the other, and you do that by voices on the pitch and a bit more intensity in what we do.

“We were really committed in the second half and we’ve shown we are more than capable of competing at this level.”

Cleverley pointed out that pleasure at picking up a goalless draw at Ipswich is testament to the work being done there by another young head coach in Kieran McKenna.

“I was really pleased with the second half performance and it’s a credit to Ipswich that we’re getting a big pat on the back for what we’ve done,” the Watford boss said.

“What Kieran is doing here is fantastic, being such a dominant side on the back of a promotion is pretty impressive.

“They caused us a lot of problems with their rotations, their individual brilliance, the intensity they play at.

“But I thought that apart from those 20 minutes before half-time we matched them in every area.”