The way the 0-0 draw with Hull City unfolded had distinct flashbacks to games at Vicarage Road earlier in the season before Tom Cleverley took over.

Watford spent all of the first half and the opening part of the second period apparently happy to be solid, watch the game and see what happened.

It was only in the last half an hour that the Hornets came to life and started to create chances, and it felt like the first 60 minutes had been wasted – resulting in an attempt to win the game in a crash-bang-wallop style last third of the match.

“I think we had that mentally that we get more comfortable about coming out of our shells the closer we get to the end of the game,” said Cleverley.

“Now I have to change that mentality.

“From the first minute of games we have to be looking to grab things by the scruff of the neck and want to make things happen.

“I don’t want us to be feeling other teams out for as long as we can, and then go for a big finish.

“Certainly at home I want us to have that mentality of superiority from minute one, and it’s my job to change that.”

The Hornets got better as the game wore on, reflecting Cleverley’s feeling that they haven’t yet lost the ‘play it safe’ mindset from earlier in the season.

“I thought it was a spirited performance, we looked motivated and I’ll give credit to our players who – on the face of it – have a lot less to play for than Hull,” he said.

“But I’ve also said to the players that I’d like to see the same level of desire to win the game that we showed in the last 15 minutes today from the first minute against Sunderland nest week.

“We were flat for an hour: we need to go and make things happen rather than wait for them to happen.

“I thought the introduction of the substitutes brought us freshness and gave us purpose in our play.

“We just couldn’t break the door down at the end, and I think the draw was a fair result.

“They had less chances than we did, but the ones they had were probably bigger chances.

“Dan Bachmann has done really well again, and he done well wince I came in.

“On the balance of everything, I think a draw was fair all round.”