Had he not got the Watford head coach role on a permanent basis, the chances are Tom Cleverley would have been using the summer to look for a new club.

The 34-year-old was appointed seven games into a nine-game stint as interim head coach, and instead faces a summer of a crash course in the off-field work a manager must do combined with all the pre-season effort he knows so well from his playing days.

A year ago, Cleverley was coming to terms with hanging up his boots, and getting ready to take on his first coaching role with the Hornets' Under-18s.

However, he admitted that had things gone differently after his time leading the club on an interim basis, he probably wouldn’t have stepped back into his old role.

“I’ll always be honest with you and with the fans, and I was honest with Jimmy Gilligan and Richard Johnson,” he said.

“I think it would have been incredibly hard to go back to the job with the Under-18s.

“And that’s in no way wanting to be disrespectful to those lads in the Under-18s.

“They gave me an experience, they gave me enjoyment, they gave me direction in my life, not just in my career.

“I will always be grateful for that chance I had, but having had a taste of this level of coaching football it would have been difficult for me to go back.”

Did he have offers to go elsewhere while he was interim head coach?

“There are always conversations that happen in and around football, but there was nothing concrete,” Cleverley admitted.

“The summer would have been a period of reflection and taking the time to plan my next move, if I hadn’t got the job here permanently.”

Now he has got the job, he is faced with revitalising a club that has just finished 15th in the second tier of English football – it’s lowest placing since 2010, and it’s fourth-worst this century.

However, Cleverley is both positive and pragmatic.

“Look at Ipswich,” he said. “When you’ve got 20 players all pulling in the same direction with an incredibly well-coached squad that made good use of the loan market – they show things we as a club can also do.

“Ipswich ended up getting automatic promotion, and for us that might be considered over-achievement.

“Par for us is play-offs, and eighth to 12th would be an improvement and stabilisation but I personally wouldn’t be happy with that.

“Finishing 15th is absolutely not where this club should be.

“One piece of consistent advice I have been given is take a job as a head coach where you can see scope for improvement.

“I see a lot of scope for improvement in our squad.

“I would have taken the job regardless because of my love for the club, but the scope I see to improve us is exciting.

“I think that’s why this period of time I’ve had has been good for me.

“It’s not pre-season, it’s not a time where you’re having to work on real preparations, it’s been a time that has allowed me to identify real areas where we can improve.

“It’s given me a head start before pre-season has even started.”

A few weeks into the job, what has surprised him the most?

“The number of agents that have wanted to get in touch with me!” he laughed.

“As soon as the final whistle went at Middlesbrough, I was bombarded by contact from agents.

“I knew some of them, but some were numbers I didn’t know.

“Aside from that, the thing I’ve been most pleasantly surprised about is just how much I’ve been involved in the player recruitment process, and the planning of pre-season.

“I’ve been given a lot of control in areas that I wasn’t expecting to be taking care of.

“It’s been a really helpful surprise.”