Cardiff, who hadn’t won an away league game all season, may have hung on a bit for their 2-1 win and deployed some stellar time-wasting tactics, but they also didn’t need heroics from keeper Ben Alnwick either. And the visitors were helped on their way by the Watford seas parting ways inside the first minute. “Look at the way we started the game again,” reflected Tom Cleverley.
“One thing you don’t want to do against a team fighting for their lives is give them hope to cling onto, and allow them to try and break the game up. “Along with that we made far too many unforced errors, which we didn’t do against Portsmouth. “It meant we couldn’t accumulate pressure and we let them off the hook too many times with sloppiness and lack of concentration.
“It was a defeat we have to take on the chin and admit that, to a man, we weren’t good enough.” That first goal, while finished well, was extremely avoidable from a Watford point of view. “We lost three duals down the side of the pitch nearest us, and if you lose duals back to back to back then you won’t be in a good shape in this division,” Cleverley admitted.
“Then the ball comes in and they find Callum Robinson free, and we all know what he can do at this level. “It was a really, really disappointing way to start the game.” After that, Watford gradually took control and the equaliser came after a sustained period of pressure.
“I thought we came back into it and scored the goal after a really po.
