Cleverley praised Bolton’s defending in the second half and admitted that the Pilgrims struggled to break them down after John McAtee saw red.
“It’s a difficult one to break down,” he told the club channels. “The area of the games we need to get better at is when we do take ownership of the ball, breaking down a side who is ahead or has had a sending off. We have not quite conquered that part of the game yet.
“I thought first half our performance was strong and we were in a lot of control of the game. Even though they had control of the ball, it was a lot using their goalkeeper and defenders, and I felt like we were always going to create turnover moments.
“When the sending off happens, it sometimes goes against the team that has more numbers because we have to be cleaner with the ball than we were, and you certainly can’t concede two goals as cheap as we did.
“However, I thought Bolton did defend their box well second half. The introduction of Forino and the big lads at the back defended the box well and we found it difficult to breakdown.”
Wanderers went more direct at times after the sending off, and Cleverley was disappointed with the defending for both goals.
“It is quite unlike Bolton, to be honest, but the more direct they got, the more effective they were,” he added. “The two goals they scored are from long punts down field that we didn’t deal with well enough.
“I think the first goal is a rash decision from Mathias (Ross) and the second goal is three-v-one in the box and we manage to concede.
“It has been a long, long time since I have seen us concede cheap goals like that and in this league, you have to defend direct play, and we didn’t do it well enough today.”
McAtee’s red card and the penalty decision for Johnny Kenny’s goal were two of the main talking points after the final whistle.
“We have got no complaints with (the penalty), I have not seen the sending off back,” said the head coach. “In real time, I felt it was a penalty and I have no complaints with the referee today at all.”