Big Watford FC, Slavisa Jokanovic gamble paid off - It landed Hornets £100m+ | OneFootball

Slavisa Jokanovic led Watford to the Premier League after becoming the club's fourth manager of the turbulent 2014-15 season.

In a welcome change from the club's usual managerial instability, Tom Cleverley looks set to complete a full season as Watford's head coach.

After a successful interim spell, Cleverley was handed the permanent job last April, and, incredibly, he will become the first manager to last an entire season at Vicarage Road since Walter Mazzarri all the way back in the 2016-17 campaign.

However, it has not all been plain sailing for Cleverley, who is the 21st different manager to have taken charge of Watford since 2012, and after reports emerged that he was set to be sacked in January, owner Gino Pozzo was forced to release a rare public statement confirming that the 35-year-old retains his full backing.

Prior to this season, the Hornets had come in for plenty of criticism for their frequent managerial turnover, but nothing quite compares to the 2014-15 campaign, when the club had four different managers on their way to promotion to the Premier League.

Watford reached peak managerial chaos in 2014-15 season

There had been warning signs of the trigger-happy nature of the Pozzo family in the early stages of their tenure with the brutal sacking of Sean Dyche immediately after their arrival in 2012, but they took things to a whole new level in the 2014-15 season.

Watford had made an excellent start to the campaign, and they sat second in the table after winning four of their first five league games, scoring 13 goals in the process, but rumours had been gathering pace that some players were unhappy with the management style of head coach Giuseppe Sannino, and the Italian duly resigned at the end of August.

In a statement, Sannino said that he felt he had "gone as far as I can" with the club and that "the time is right for me to move on", but it seems his departure may have been planned for some time as, just two days later, Oscar Garcia was appointed as his replacement.

Garcia had led Brighton & Hove Albion to the Championship play-offs the previous season before surprisingly resigning from his role at the Amex Stadium, so he looked like a strong choice for the Hornets, but having only officially taken charge of one game, he was forced to step down after just 27 days due to health reasons following a spell in hospital.

Rather than searching for an external candidate, Watford opted to hand Garcia's assistant, Billy McKinlay, the job after his exit, and he made a decent start to his reign, picking up four points from his first two games.

However, after just eight days at the helm, the Hornets made the shock decision to replace McKinlay with Slavisa Jokanovic, who had previously had spells managing in Serbia, Thailand, Bulgaria and Spain, with Pozzo stating that the change was in the "long-term interests" of the club and claiming that "an experienced head coach with a winning pedigree is of primary importance to help ensure the success we are all striving for".

Jokanovic's name would have been familiar with some Watford supporters after his time at Chelsea during his playing days, but few knew anything about his managerial ability, making his appointment a big risk, but Pozzo's gamble was certainly rewarded.

Watford hit the jackpot with bold Slavisa Jokanovic decision

Jokanovic was Watford's fourth different head coach in just 37 turbulent days, but his tenure got off to the perfect start with a 3-0 win at Sheffield Wednesday, and a further five points followed from the next three games.

However, a run of four consecutive defeats in November saw the Hornets drop out of the play-off places, and given the managerial upheaval that had already been seen at Vicarage Road during the season, Jokanovic would surely have been fearing for his job at that point.

In a surprise turn of events, Watford opted to remain patient and stick with Jokanovic, and after the losing run threatened to derail their promotion push, the 56-year-old managed to get his side's season back on track.

The Hornets suffered just four defeats over the next four months to climb to the top of the table in mid-March, and they clinched promotion with a 2-0 victory at Brighton in the penultimate game, but they did suffer disappointment on the final day as they missed out on the Championship title to Bournemouth.

Jokanovic led Watford to a return to the Premier League for the first time since 2007, and while the exact figure is unclear, it is estimated that promotion can earn a club an increase in revenue of between £135 million and £265 million, depending on how they fare in the top flight, so Pozzo certainly reaped the financial rewards of his controversial managerial call.

However, the Hornets' promotion celebrations were interrupted abruptly in June when it was announced that Jokanovic had left Vicarage Road after failing to agree a new contract, with the club said to have been reluctant to meet his demands for a basic salary of £2.5 million, instead offering him £1 million and a further £1 million based on performance.

Jokanovic departed after winning 21, drawing five and losing 10 of his 36 games in charge, and while his legacy is somewhat damaged by the manner of his exit, he will certainly go down as one of the better appointments during the Pozzo era.