The chances were there, they may not have been clear-cut, but Watford should really have been ahead at Oxford on Saturday before things went off the rails.
Although the Hornets didn’t pepper the home side’s goal, they did enough to carve out a couple of decent openings in the first half.
Take one or both, and the game almost certainly would have panned out very differently.
“If you give me that collection of chances on another day I would take it again because I think we’d score one or two normally,” said Tom Cleverley.
“Moussa was one v one, Francisco’s header, and five or six half chances.
“We have the quality to do better.
“If I could aim any criticism at the lads today it’s that we were not clinical enough.
“We had 16 shots in all, none on target in the second half, and that’s ultimately why we’ve not won the game.
“We’re not clinical enough in key moments.”
Because there isn’t a column in the league table for ‘points you should have had’, it means the disappointment at not taking something home from the Kassam Stadium feels a bit hollow.
“I’m getting a little bit sick of disappointment when I don’t feel my team are playing as poorly as maybe the results show,” said Cleverley.
“Why are we not winning the games we’re in full control of? Millwall, Oxford, Stoke.
“It’s a conundrum that I need to solve on how do we turn all this control and good play into wins?
“No-one wants to see a team playing great football but not winning football matches, especially at this stage of the season.”
It wasn’t the easiest day for playing football, with a wind swirling around the stadium, and a pitch that wasn’t the best – however, it was, as they say, the same for both teams.
“I thought we handled the conditions really well,” Cleverley stressed.
“It wasn’t a pitch where you could play the football that we normally do, but we saw out the first 20 minutes which were lively and wind-affected.
“Then I thought we were in absolute control.
“People will say it is all about results now, and it is – but over a 46-game season performances have got better in the long term, and this way of playing is the way I want them to believe in.
“I’m gutted they’re not getting the results to back that up.”
