Watford looked down and out against Arsenal on Sunday before their stirring comeback gave Quique Sanchez Flores plenty of positives on his return to the club as manager.
Tom Cleverley admits the Hornets spent the week being drilled on pressing Arsenal into mistakes, with the midfielder providing a damning assessment of the visitors’ reluctance to change their approach.
“I feel like we were well organised from their goal kicks,” he said. “It is something we worked on all week. We weren’t surprised they tried to play like that.
"It was just more of a surprise they didn’t adapt during the game and they were pretty stubborn with it.”
While Arsenal missed out on the chance to move into the Premier League’s top four, Watford remain bottom of the table with two points from five games.
However, Cleverley believes Flores is already making an impact and that last season’s FA Cup finalists should soon climb up the league.
“He’s not bombarded us with information,” said Cleverley. “He’s just got his ideas across, very black and white about the basics of how he wants to set up and play. It has been a good, positive week.
“The most pleasing thing was how solid we were defensively in the second half.
"It has been a problem of ours this season and we were really solid at the back in the second half, from a good shape and that helps us get numbers forward.
“We need to be consistent with performances like that now and if we do that we won’t be long where we are now [in the table].”
