Burnley
Blackburn Rovers
Coventry City
Derby County
Leeds United
Luton Town
Middlesbrough
Millwall
Norwich City
Portsmouth
Sheffield Wednesday
Sheffield United
QPR
The Championship has witnessed an incredible number of managerial departures in the last month, and Tom Cleverley was the latest to face the sack as Watford pulled the trigger on the Englishman.
In April, Norwich sacked Johannes Hoff Thorup, with Jack Wilshere poised to become the new permanent manager of the Canaries.
West Brom were also unhappy with Tony Mowbray as he exited the Hawthorns after just five wins in 17 matches.
Meanwhile, Cardiff axed Omer Riza and replaced him with Aaron Ramsey before suffering relegation to League One, while several other names are teetering close to the exit door.
We exclusively revealed that Acun Ilicali could sack Ruben Selles, despite keeping the Tigers in the Championship, and Ruud van Nistelrooy is poised to depart Leicester City this summer.
The list doesn’t stop there, though, as Watford controversially sacked Tom Cleverley on Tuesday, the latest in a long line of departures from Vicarage Road.
Watford’s next manager will need to defy astonishing statistic
A season of promise and a chance to break into the Championship play-offs ultimately ended in disappointment for Watford, who ended the campaign in 14th position.
The Hornets had to achieve a top-six finish in 2024/25, or Cleverley faced the sack, and that is exactly what happened.
From the outside looking in, Watford made another terrible decision to let go of a perfectly promising manager.
But, after collecting just one win from their final nine Championship matches, the Pozzos used that as an excuse to cut ties, sparking the search for their next head coach.
Remarkably, but rather unsurprisingly, Watford’s previous 19 managers haven’t reached 70 games in charge of the club before leaving.
Cleverley managed 52 matches from March 2024 to May 2025 with 19 wins, nine draws and 24 losses while posting a points per game average of 1.27.
The list of Watford’s last 19 managers
For the next manager at Watford to break the 70-match barrier and exceed two years in charge of the club, it will take something special.
| Manager | From | To |
| Tom Cleverley | 09 Mar, 2024 | 06, May, 2025 |
| Valerien Ismael | 10 May, 2023 | 09 Mar, 2024 |
| Chris Wilder | 07 Mar, 2023 | 09 May, 2023 |
| Slaven Bilic | 26 Sep, 2022 | 07 Mar, 2023 |
| Rob Edwards | 01 Jul, 2022 | 26 Sep, 2022 |
| Roy Hodgson | 25 Jan, 2022 | 30 May, 2022 |
| Claudio Ranieri | 04 Oct, 2021 | 24 Jan, 2022 |
| Xisco Munoz | 21 Dec, 2020 | 03 Oct, 2021 |
| Vladimir Ivic | 15 Aug, 2020 | 21 Dec, 2020 |
| Hayden Mullins | 19 Jul, 2020 | 15 Aug, 2020 |
| Nigel Pearson | 06 Dec, 2019 | 19 Jul, 2020 |
| Hayden Mullins | 02 Dec, 2019 | 06 Dec, 2019 |
| Enrique Sanchez Flores | 07 Sep, 2019 | 01 Dec, 2019 |
| Javier Gracia | 21 Jan, 2018 | 07 Sep, 2019 |
| Marco Silva | 27 May, 2017 | 21 Jan, 2018 |
| Walter Mazzarri | 01 Jul, 2016 | 21 May, 2017 |
| Enrique Sanchez Flores | 05 Jun, 2015 | 30 Jun, 2016 |
| Slavisa Jokanovic | 07 Oct, 2014 | 04 Jun, 2015 |
| Billy McKinlay | 29 Sep, 2014 | 07 Oct, 2014 |
As seen by the above table, a range of names have taken charge of the Hertfordshire-based side over the years, including current Sheffield United boss Chris Wilder and Leicester City icon Claudio Ranieri.
It will be interesting to see which manager is brave enough to take the job next, as history suggests that even winning promotion to the Premier League doesn’t guarantee they’ll be safe with Watford’s cut-throat approach.