Tom Cleverley said he shouldered the blame for much of what went wrong against Swansea tonight.

Just a few days after scoring six at Sheffield Wednesday, the Hornets couldn’t even manage a shot on target and struggled to get hold of the ball during a particularly poor first half.

Watford had just 40% possession before the break, and Cleverley said that was down to him.

“Out of possession, I will hold my hands up: we paid Swansea too much respect,” he admitted.

“We were trying to play more of a transition game, but without Baah that’s probably something that I have to hold my hands up and say I got wrong.

“In possession, the players have to take responsibility.

“We had no identity at all for the first hour, and Swansea’s pressure was good but normally we have the technique and structure to break that down and find our players in pockets.

“But until the substitutes came on we didn’t look like scoring.”

Having looked so confident and assured at Hillsborough, Watford were timid and lost two many duels all over the pitch.

“We showed very little personality and after what we did at the weekend that surprised me a little bit,” said the head coach.

“We were in such a confident moment and yet we played with fear tonight, and didn’t get rhythm in the game.

“That goes back to my responsibility, because I let Swansea have possession too easily and we showed them too much respect.”

Yet again, after a couple of good performances, the Hornets have thrown in a shocker.

“That has been the story of our season, as well as flat first-half performances,” Cleverley agreed.

“It’s something we really need to address urgently.

“With two steps forward and one step back the trajectory is upwards but we can be so much better and we keep taking that one step back.

“Thankfully we’ve got another game in three days and we can put this behind us, but it’s disappointing not to have built on the positives of Saturday.”

The Watford boss explained why Kwadwo Baah was on the bench.

“If I could have played Baah from the start, I would have,” he said.

“We managed him through the game tonight, and he was only meant to be playing for a 30-minute period because he was sore after Saturday and I wanted him fully fit for Friday.

“We managed him tonight and reduced his load, and if I could have used him for zero minutes I would have.

“But we needed him to bring us some freshness and energy.”