The pursuit of new loan signing Daniel Jebbison involved Watford fighting off a long list of other clubs who wanted to take the striker.

With Bournemouth’s intention when they signed the 21-year-old from Sheffield United last month being to loan him back out to get first-team experience, clubs at home and abroad were immediately alerted to the likely availability of the England Under-20 international.

It’s understood as many as 15 clubs made offers to take the forward on loan, and that Tom Cleverley’s personal explanation of his plans for the player impressed both Jebbison and Bournemouth to swing it in Watford’s favour.

“The fact that so many clubs were interested in taking him on loan from Bournemouth during this window shows how highly rated he is,” said the Watford boss.

“We have had to fight off a hell of a lot of competition to secure him.

“But that makes the hard work that everyone is doing behind the scenes feel worth it.

“He’ll have to fight for his spot though. By no means is it a case of him walking straight into the team.

“He will bring a different dynamic to our team though, and will hopefully take us to another level.”

Cleverley has always talked about seeking a particular profile of player for the No.9 role that he wants, and Jebbison fits that.

“He is a player that has a lot going for him,” explained the head coach.

“He’s physically in great shape, he’s quick, he wants to run channels and he can score goals.

“I think the only thing that has held him back for the last 18 months has been his fitness issues.

“Now that’s a very unfortunate set of circumstances that happened at Sheffield United, and the player hasn’t got chronic issues, and he hasn’t got a body that’s not durable.

“It was just unfortunate circumstances.

“He’s put those problems behind him and had a fantastic pre-season at Bournemouth.

“He’s played for them twice in the Premier League already this season, and is someone I think can really add to our attacking output.”

The circumstances that Cleverley refers to are when Jebbison was ruled out for most of last season, and it later came to light the player had a blood clot.

Speaking to the Yorkshire Evening Post earlier this year, Sheffield United CEO Stephen Bettis explained the situation.

"I think Daniel's been really unlucky in the last year to 18 months with injuries and even with that I think he's been getting a bit of stick on social media,” he said.

"I don't think the fans really know what's been happening. I think there was one point where it was quoted that he had a 'mystery illness' or something like that.

"At times you are respecting the player’s privacy and their medical records but I know that Daniel is happy because I have spoken to him about it, that he's happy for me to say what I'm saying to you.

"We do blood tests on the players regularly to check various things and following a blood test Daniel had here, he’d basically got a blood clot. Then that involved that whole process of figuring out what happened, why it happened, how it can't happen again.

"For a time he was on blood thinners so obviously he can't play because if he gets a cut or anything, that stops him.

“That's all been resolved and Daniel is fine again and there's no issues and he can play, but he's come back and he hasn't played for such a long time that naturally at times you pick up injuries because your body's not been training every single day.

"With everything that went on, he wasn't in a place where they wanted him to talk about it until they had figured all of this out."

Although he’s not been a prolific scorer – 13 goals in 41 senior career appearances – Cleverley sees the No.9 position as far more than just hitting the net.

“I don’t want to compare us to a top team like Bayer Leverkusen just yet,” he smiled, “but if you look at them you’ll see their wing-backs and their No.10s are really productive players when it comes to goalscoring.

“I’m assuming we will be the same, and so rather than relying on your No.9 to do all the goalscoring we’ll be more shared out between different positions.”

Jebbison played the first 45 minutes of Bournemouth's Carabao Cup tie at West Ham on Wednesday night, and the Watford head coach could only look on and hope he came through unscathed.

“Yeah, I was at that game!” laughed Cleverley.

“Obviously it was a case of what will be will be, but now the deal is over the line we can look forward to what Daniel can add to us.”