Tom Cleverley was never going to survive Watford sack after deluded decision

Tom Cleverley's craven sacking by Watford leaves English football’s most fickle club searching for their 11th head coach since 2020. And after the third-longest reign under Gino Pozzo’s ownership was sawn off at 14 months, social media comedians have fresh material to feed their laughing-stock gags.

Hornets boss Cleverley , ludicrously, that failure to reach the play-offs with a squad among the bookies’ pre-season favourites for relegation was somehow a sackable offence. To finish 14th with 57 points - one place higher and with one more point than last season - was not the true measure of Cleverley’s rule.

He was the first coach since Javi Gracia, who led to the FA Cup final six years ago, to reconnect the fanbase with their team. But as another decent man is tossed overboard, Cleverley joins the Hornets’ favourite son Luther Blissett - whose appointment as club ambassador was quietly discontinued, without explanation, earlier this season - as surplus to requirements.

Pozzo was plotting to sack Cleverley in late January, lining up former Villarreal coach Juan Martin Rojo (also known as Pacheta), only for a tsunami of fan protests and the Spaniard running into work permit complications allegedly preventing the coup.

In a hasty U-turn, Pozzo issued a statement on the morning of Watford’s 2-1 defeat at Coventry claiming the Hornets hierarchy were “committed to support him and look forward to the challenges ahead together.”

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That pledge can now be filed in the same folder as the reneged promise to back Rob Edwards “come hell or high water” - before Edwards was binned after just 10 games in 2022. When Cleverley presided over a textbook home win in February against doomed arch-rivals Luton Town, who were relegated on the last day of term, he looked safe for at least the remaining 12 games. But as Watford’s hopes of a top-six finish faded, the twitchiest trigger finger in English football was reaching for the holster again.

At face value, Watford’s results since Christmas - 20 points from the last 24 games and just nine points from the last available 36 - left Cleverley vulnerable. But if the Hornets power-brokers genuinely believed he could reach the play-offs with only two fit strikers - 19-year-old greenhorn Mamadou Doumbia and the perpetually infuriating Vakoun Bayo - they were not just deluded. They were living in cloud cuckoo land or One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest territory.

Bayo finished the season as top scorer with 10 goals, but five of them came in a single week, with four in the same game at Sheffield Wednesday six months ago, a freak show which has long been dismissed by despairing fans as a mirage in the desert. Notably, neither Pozzo nor executive chairman Scott Duxbury put their names to the statement announcing Cleverley’s departure, leaving sporting director Gian Luca Nani as mouthpiece for yet another dollop of corporate hogwash from Vicarage Road.

“We thank Tom for his service – not just in his role as Head Coach but for everything he has given Watford as a player and member of staff,” said Nani, trotting out the party line. “But 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.

“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. Tom will always be part of Watford in recognition of all that he has achieved over so many years.”

The former England midfielder, who won 13 caps for the Three Lions and represented Team GB at the London 2012 Olympics, issued a dignified statement after the axe fell. He said: ”After nine-and-a-half years of my life - as a loanee, player, captain, academy coach and head coach - my time at the club has come to an end.

"After the sadness wears off, I will forever have a feeling of gratitude and happiness towards the club and the place and people of Watford. To have built a connection with the players and supporters over the last 14 months has been special and the achievement I'm most proud about.

"To see the development of our key players, young players and academy players has been an incredibly rewarding part of my job and their progress in the game will always be something I look out for. To the club I'm grateful for the opportunity, the players for their efforts, and the supporters myself and my family will forever appreciate the love and support you have given me on this journey.

"I repeat I will be sad that it's over, but full of happiness that it ever happened. And I hope it's not the final time our paths cross. You ‘Orns."

With 35-year-old Cleverley’s departure, it leaves Portsmouth’s John Mousinho as the season’s sole survivor among head coaches and managers in the lower half of the Championship.

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