Tom Cleverley hailed Vakoun Bayo after his 10th goal of the season ended a run of four successive defeats in all competitions for Watford.
Having fallen behind to a 65th-minute goal from Cardiff’s Cian Ashford it looked as though the Hornets were going to lose again before Bayo headed home in the 87th minute to put them back on track for a play-off place.
It was a moment that had Watford boss Cleverley once again singing the praises of his leading goalscorer.
“I’m really pleased with Bayo and as well as scoring the goal he also got through a lot of work. He was clearly one of our better performers,” said Cleverley.
“He scored four goals a couple of seasons ago, five or six last year and now he’s into double figures for this season.
“It always pleases me when the goalscorers in the side find themselves in the right place at the right time to score.
“We are now eighth in the league, which is seven places higher than we finished last season, but we have bigger ambitions than that.
“The last few games have shown that we need to improve if we want to mix it with the likes of Middlesbrough, West Brom and Blackburn for the play-off places.”
Resilience
The draw ended the run of four successive defeats and even when he saw his side go behind with 25 minutes to play Cleverley never thought the game was up.
“We are mentally strong at the end of games, but the question is are we saving ourselves at the start of games?” added Cleverley.
“I know how good we are in the last 10 minutes of games. We have a good fighting spirit and I never thought the game was lost.
“The first half was poor and that’s not how I want my players to play. That was my fault because I set them up to be solid.
“I changed the formation in the second half and we became more aggressive. I just thought, if we are going to go down we will go down fighting.”
Cardiff’s Frustration
As for Cardiff boss Omer Riza, the loss of two priceless points will have hurt but at least his side moved out of the relegation zone and made it five games in a row without defeat going into Saturday’s derby against Swansea.
“I’m frustrated for the players because they worked very hard again and probably deserved the three points,” said Riza.
“We should be eight points better off in our last four games and we could have been as high as 13th. But if you don’t take the chances you create, you give the opposition the chance to hit back.
“You need to kill their energy and momentum and we aren’t quite doing that at the moment. It was a good performance and we have to take that into the game on Saturday.
“That is a very important fixture and we will go into it full of confidence. We have the right endeavour and togetherness but we need a bit more composure.
“We’re out of the bottom three for now and we want to keep on looking upwards. We want to bring in more players and we could have one in before the weekend who might get some minutes against Swansea.”
READ MORE: Watford stop the rot as Vakoun Bayo nets late equaliser against Cardiff
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