Watford, fifth in the Championship, have sacked manager Vladimir Ivic.

Ivic leaves the club after today’s defeat at Huddersfield Town, just their fourth this season, and his departures comes with the Hornets fifth in the table.

Watford have struggled to score goals this season, only Bristol City in the top half of the table have scored fewer, but only Swansea City have conceded fewer.

Ivic leaves having won nine of his 22 matches his charge, with eight draws and five defeats, with Watford having now sacked four managers since the start of last season.

Hayden Mullins has had two spells in caretaker charge, and since Javi Gracia, who led the club to the FA Cup final in 2019, Quique Sánchez Flores, Nigel Pearson and Ivic have all been permanent managers at Vicarage Road.

A club statement read: “The club would like to confirm the departure of Head Coach Vladimir Ivic. We wish Vladimir well in his future endeavours.”

Ivic’s departures comes having revealed in his post-match press conference that Troy Deeney, a scorer in the three previous matches, wasn’t brought on against Huddersfield because of disciplinary issues.

He said: “Why he didn't come from the bench, this is another question, because of some discipline issues.

“This is between us, and I don't want to speak about some things to the media.

"I said from the first day, I'm here to do my best and to work to do what's best for the club, together with my players.

"Nobody, and no one can be above the club in my team when I'm coach. We need to think about the team and how we can improve the team and how we can give them what we need to get three points, day by day.

"This the philosophy. What I want to introduce. They know it I spoke with them a lot of times about that.

"About the discipline issue what happened, I don't want to speak in the media about that."