The sale of Wes Hoedt after the season had started left Tom Cleverley with precious little time to fill a captain-sized hole.

The Dutch defender finally moved to Al-Shabab in Saudi Arabia, but for long periods it seemed he would stay at Vicarage Road.

Unlike the sales of Ismael Kone and Yaser Asprilla, the departure of Hoedt was less expected.

“It was the one we had the least time to prepare for,” said Cleverley.

“The first two players you named were two that you’re absolutely right about, I didn’t expect either of them to play minutes in my team.

“And we had prepared for both of those, both in terms of trying to develop Kayembe into a player a little higher up the pitch and also in identifying options.

“Kone happened so early that we could prepare and look at replacements, and we had similar with Asprilla.

“But with Wes, a little less so. It was touch and go, and we were doing a lot of thinking about what was best for the player, for the club and for the team, and in the end we took the decision to let him go.

“I think it’s worked out because we’ve replaced him with Angelo, who was a perfect replacement and there are a lot of similarities between the two as players and leaders.”

Cleverley took the chance to pay tribute to last season’s Player of the Season.

“What I do want to say is I hope Wes is happy where he is, because he cared more about this football club than people know or appreciate,” said the Watford boss.

“He could overstep the mark at times but that was always out of a will to win.

“He was prepared to sacrifice a lot of money to stay at this club, and from a human point of view it would be nice if people understood that.”