1 week Ago
It didn’t quite work out that way, and when reflecting upon the 1-0 victory the head coach admitted he probably set the bar a bit too high. “I made those comments yesterday, and then I sat in my office and thought 'we’re missing Baah, we’re missing Chakvetadze, our two most creative players',” he reflected. “I’m asking a lot of this group to create 15 or 20 chances.
“We have Rocco, Zavier and Mamadou in an attacking unit – Rocco is a bit more developed but we were expecting the other two to be first-team players in three years and yet they’re doing it right now, way ahead of schedule. “So I said that, and it was also against a team that doesn’t give up much so it was always likely to be a 1-0 win tonight. “I would have taken the result over absolutely anything.
” Cleverley did though, see his players wanting to attack and carrying out what they had been asked in many areas. “There were a couple of things we asked for: when you receive the ball can you run forward? Can you pass forward?” he explained. “I wanted the full-backs to be really aggressive with the ball and the goal was a representation of that, with Caleb getting on the overlap.
“We asked for numbers in the box and Moussa makes a great run from a wider position. “We saw in the goal what we wanted to see in the performance – did we repeat it over and over again? No, but that’s difficult against a team who is so well organised defensively.” In a three-game week when two of the matches are away from home, Cleverley has had to dig deep into a squad already missing some key faces due to injury.
With a trip to West Brom at the weekend, themselves still harbouring play-off hopes and only a point ahead of the Hornets, the head coach has to consider his team selection. “It’s a great experience for the youngsters but I’ve got to manage it now, because The Hawthorns on Saturday is a different environment, and maybe I’d be naïve to have so many young players in an environment like that," he stressed. “But they will all develop and learn from this experience tonight.
“I said to them after the game they should be learning off the senior lads on a daily basis because they have some really great examples in the dressing room.”.
