Watford have sacked head coach Tom Cleverley after a run of five league wins in 2025 saw them finish 14th in the Championship.

The former Hornets player was appointed on an initial interim basis in March 2024, and was handed the job full-time after losing only one of seven games.

Despite losing both the club’s player and young player of the year last summer, he led the Hornets to within four points of the play-offs at the end of March, but one win from their final seven games saw them finish 11 points adrift.

Though Cleverley’s dismissal represents Watford’s 10th sacking in the last five years, he leaves as the third-longest-serving manager since Gino Pozzo took over as owner in 2012.

It also ends the 35-year-old’s eight-year association with the club, having initially joined as a player from Everton in 2017.

He went on to make 146 appearances for the club, and ended his career a year after he had been appointed as captain in 2023.

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

Cleverley leaves as Watford’s longest-serving head coach since Javi Gracia – and is the first to last more than a season since the Spanish boss was dismissed in 2019.

Under the Pozzo regime, the Hornets have been through 21 permanent managers in 13 years, including 15 who have lasted less than a full campaign.