Sean Dyche given Watford manager job

Dyche played 78 games during a three-year spell at Watford

Watford have named assistant boss Sean Dyche as the replacement for outgoing manager Malky Mackay, who left to join Cardiff last week.

The former Hornets defender, 39, became the club's youth team coach in 2007 and was promoted to assistant upon Mackay's appointment in the summer of 2009.

The job will be his first foray into football management.

"On behalf of the board, I fully endorse Sean's appointment," chairman Graham Taylor told the club website.

"Continuity is imperative. In Sean we have a very decent man who understands what it means to work for Watford.

"He is a strong advocate of the importance of our home-grown talent flourishing, having been youth-team coach only a couple of years ago."

Owner Laurence Bassini added: "I'm delighted that the board have been able to add their experience and influence to the decision to appoint Sean as our new manager.

"For me, this appointment is very much keeping in with 'the Watford way' of doing things and that's an ethos I'm growing more familiar with as time goes on."

While he was Watford youth coach Dyche oversaw the progress of current first team regulars Scott Loach, Dale Bennett, Ross Jenkins and Marvin Sordell.

He will now adopt a young side which has already lost two of last season's top performers in Danny Graham and Will Buckley.

The Kettering-born centre-half made his playing breakthrough at Chesterfield, where he plied his trade for seven years from 1990.

Spells at Bristol City and Millwall followed before he joined the Hornets in 2002, going on to make 78 appearances in three years.

He finished his playing career at Northampton, retiring in the summer of 2007, and became part of the Vicarage Road coaching staff later that year.