Tom Cleverley has vowed to “work tirelessly” to improve Watford's cutting edge in front of the opposition goal but says his players need to show more character when games are not going to plan.

The inability to capitalise on promising situations was one of the biggest disappointments of Saturday’s 2-0 friendly defeat at Gillingham, particularly during a first half which the visitors bossed for the most part only to find themselves a goal down at the break.

The opening minutes of the second half suggested more of the same was on the cards but Watford created little after Cleverley made a quadruple change on the hour, conceding a second goal nine minutes later when Jack Nolan made the most of a counter attack.

“First half, I thought it was pleasing,” the Watford head coach reflected. “A lot of control in the game. Obviously football’s about winning matches but I think if you play the first half over and over again you find yourself leading a lot more than you do losing.

“In the second half we made a slight tweak that I’ll take responsibility for and it left us too open on counter attack. We got too many bodies forward and it was just clogging things up and we didn’t create half as much.

“I think it’s clear we need to improve in the final third, again. It’s my responsibility to improve that and we’ll work tirelessly to do so moving forward.

“And then I thought in the second half we just went off script a little bit. We need to show a bit better character when things are maybe not going as we exactly planned to believe in what we keep doing and that’s a test now moving forward.

“I fully believe that we can get success with the way we’re trying to play and the guys have to show character in that belief.”

Asked if the lack of a cutting edge was the biggest concern, Cleverley responded: “I’m not a finger pointer and it’s my job to improve that but you can see with the amount of chances that we’re creating or box entries or whatever you want to call it, dangerous situations that we’re just not testing goalkeepers or being productive enough at the minute.”

The player who looked one of the most likely to make something positive happen in the Gillingham penalty area during his hour on the pitch was Rocco Vata.

The 19-year-old was making his first start of pre-season following his move from Celtic and he caught the eye with his positivity and desire to run at opponents.

“He’s lively, he’s got real 1v1 qualities, he’s direct, he wants to score and assist and that will come for him,” Cleverley said. “He’s learning the out of possession responsibilities and I’m sure he’ll increase in his physical duels as well which he’ll see is an important side of it, especially in the Championship.”