Watford boss Tom Cleverley is hoping to hang onto most of the club's best players this summer despite failing to reach the play-offs.

The former Manchester United and Everton midfielder is the first Hornets head coach to survive an entire season since Javi Gracia in 2018-19.

He wants players like Georgia playmaker Giorgi Chakvetadze to be at Vicarage Road for the start of the new campaign.

"I expect a lot of our top players to be here next season. I wouldn't be surprised to see a couple of exits, most Championship clubs are selling clubs, but I'm full preparing for all our top players and match-winners to be in the building," Cleverley told BBC Three Counties Radio.

Watford are 13th in the Championship, 10 points adrift of the top six, ahead of Saturday's season-ending lunchtime kick-off against Sheffield Wednesday at Vicarage Road.

Cleverley said that their hopes of achieving a play-off place had been undermined by injuries, particularly among his forwards.

"There's no difference in the number of goals we've conceded from pre-January to post-January, but the amount of goals we've scored has dropped significantly," he added.

"The availability of Giorgi, KB (Kwadwo Baah), of Moussa (Sissoko) through suspension, we haven't got the depth in our squad to be able to cope with that. We wouldn't want to lose any of those players in the market, that's for sure."

Chakvetadze's season was ended by a stress fracture in a toe and Baah has not been available since early April.

Watford have lost their last four games and Cleverley believes they "owe" supporters "a performance" to end the campaign on a positive note.

"I see it as the first game of next season already and that's not disrespecting what this season is. I spoke the other day about which individuals are willing to come on the next part of our journey together and Saturday will have an impact on that," he said.

"It's definitely been a season we've learned from. We spent 10 weeks in the play-offs (places), we showed real positive signs before the turn of the year and I think we can clearly identify where and why we've run out of a bit of steam.

"We've got an incredibly young squad, the average age is boosted up by one or two individuals, but apart from that it's largely under 25 and the majority under 21 at the minute.

"The experiences they will have had this year - some bad ones - to really develop and ultimately improve from is one of the really exciting positives from this season."