Watford sack head coach Cleverley

Watford have sacked head coach Tom Cleverley after the team failed to reach the Championship play-offs.

The Hornets finished 14th in the table after taking only one point from their last five games – a 1-1 season-ending draw with Sheffield Wednesday.

Former Manchester United, Everton and Watford midfielder Cleverley, capped 13 times by England, was appointed as interim boss in March 2024 following Valerien Ismael’s departure.

He was then confirmed in the post on a permanent basis the following month.

The 35-year-old was in charge for 60 games in total, winning 20 and losing 26.

Sporting director Gian Luca Nani said: “The time has come for a change and to build on what we believe is a young and talented squad that will have benefited from the experience of the Championship this season.

“It has been a privilege to work closely with Tom; to understand how he sees the game and his enthusiasm for everything here. He deserves to be recognised for this and I’m sure he will have a bright future in the game.”

Cleverley was the first head coach to remain in charge for an entire season since Javi Gracia in 2018-19.

He was unbeaten at home in his first 15 league games as boss, but results took a downturn following a 2-1 defeat by Cardiff on 29 December and they only took five points from the next nine matches.

Reports in Spain earlier this season claimed former Villarreal head coach Jose Rojo Martin, known as Pacheta, had been in talks with Watford to replace him.

In January, the club dismissed that as “pure speculation” and owner Gino Pozzo later said of Cleverley: “We are committed to support him and look forward to the challenges ahead together.”

Speaking last week, Cleverley said that hopes of achieving a play-off place had been undermined by injuries, particularly among his forwards.

“There’s no difference in the number of goals we’ve conceded from pre-January to post-January, but the amount of goals we’ve scored has dropped significantly,” he said.

He promised to learn the lessons of the campaign and added: “We spent 10 weeks in the play-offs [places], we showed real positive signs before the turn of the year and I think we can clearly identify where and why we’ve run out of a bit of steam.

“We’ve got an incredibly young squad, the average age is boosted up by one or two individuals, but apart from that it’s largely under 25 and the majority under 21 at the minute.

“The experiences they will have had this year – some bad ones – to really develop and ultimately improve from is one of the really exciting positives from this season.”

No Watford manager or head coach has lasted an entire calendar year in the job since Malky Mackay in 2010.

Since being relegated from the Premier League in 2022, they have finished 11th, 15th and now 14th.

By Geoff Doyle, BBC Three Counties Radio sport editor

This is going to go down very badly with Watford fans. Tom Cleverley was a really popular head coach – probably the most popular since Javi Gracia who took the club to a Wembley FA Cup final – and supporters will be upset and angry.

Cleverley was a former player who first joined the club when he was a youngster on loan from Manchester United and then came back towards the end of his career. He then became academy manager at the club before his role as first-team head coach.

Watford were seen as possible relegation candidates this season but Cleverley had them in and around the play-offs all season before they drifted away.

He also had to go through a seriously awkward situation in January where his club had to reassure him he wasn’t being sacked on the day of a game when reports in Spain suggested the club had a new man lined up.

The Watford board feel like it’s the right time for change and can point to a poor run of form in the last four months. But Watford fans’ favourite song this season has been about not caring about owner Gino Pozzo and only caring about Cleverley.