Watford will get best out of Jebbison says Cleverley.
Is it really fair to judge a player on 243 minutes of football?
Daniel Jebbison has started twice for Watford since joining on loan late in the summer transfer window, and has made a further three appearances from the bench.
The 21-year-old was rated highly enough by Premier League side Bournemouth that they signed him from Sheffield United at the end of last season, and then gave him two outings in the Premier League and one in the Carabao Cup before he moved to Vicarage Road.
It would be fair to say the striker has not captured the imagination of the Watford fans just yet, but with so little evidence to go on then Jebbison is due a little more time to impress.“He’s a player that hasn’t had a run of games in senior football really, since he was at Burton Albion in the 21/22 season,” said Tom Cleverley.
“He needs to get his rhythm and he’s someone who has real electric pace which he needs to be fit enough to repeat and repeat.
“I’ve seen in every training session he can finish off both feet, and against Middlesbrough we saw he was a little bit unpolished with his hold-up play and his passing.
“With a lot of young players, that often isn’t a technique issue – it’s a concentration issue.
“I said to people on Saturday there were times when he did actions one, two, three and four perfectly, and it was the fifth one that let him down.
“If we’re sitting here after ten or 15 appearances and saying he still needs rhythm then I might worry, but I’m not worried right now.
“I’ve said I don’t read comments but I can understand why there might be a few grumbles.
“He has better technique than people are probably giving him credit for.
“If anything he is probably guilty of trying too hard at the moment, but I’m confident we will get the best out of him.”
With the shape Watford play, and the jobs that each player is asked to perform, can a No.9 score 20 goals in the current set-up?
“I think they could, yeah,” said Cleverley.
“There is one piece of data that I’ve not looked at yet, and I need to.
“I know we have created one of the highest numbers of big chances in the division, and also our number of final-third entries are high.
“Our attacking output has been really good.
“What I am going to look at is how many of those big chances are falling to our No.9s. I need to look at it.
“It might not be that our No.9 can get 20 goals a season, but I certainly believe it can be 15.
“We all have to work hard to keep creating the chances, but also to give the players the best conditions to finish them in.”
