Lewington was appointed as manager of Brentford, taking them to a losing appearance in the Football League Trophy final in 2001 and guiding them to 14th in Division Two. He left at the end of the 2000–01 season to become Gianluca Vialli's reserve team manager at Watford: a difficult role, as Vialli never let any first-team players play for the reserve side. When Vialli was sacked in the summer 2002, Lewington was appointed manager. Like with Fulham 16 years earlier, Lewington assumed control of a club that had an extremely limited budget, with the club crippled from the collapse of ITV Digital and the high-spending of the Vialli era, which had failed to result in promotion to the Premier League. Despite this, Lewington guided the club to two middle table finishes and two cup semi-finals—a 2–1 loss to Southampton in the FA Cup in 2003 and a 2–0 loss (over two legs) to Liverpool in the League Cup two seasons later. Just two months after the Liverpool game, Lewington was sacked, after a poor run of league form. In July 2005, Lewington returned to Fulham after ten years away, as reserve team manager, under manager Chris Coleman. By this time, Fulham were an established Premier League club with healthy finances. In December 2007, Lewington served a brief stint as caretaker manager after the departure of Lawrie Sanchez, managing the team for three games until Roy Hodgson was appointed full-time. He remained at Craven Cottage as part of the management team as assistant manager. He was replaced as assistant manager by Mark Bowen when Mark Hughes became manager and became the first team coach. On 17 October 2010, it was announced on the Fulham website that Lewington had been given the job of leading the club's Youth Development Program and that taking his position as first team coach would be Glyn Hodges. Mark Hughes resigned after the end of the 2010–11 season and his successor Martin Jol reinstated Lewington as first team coach in June 2011, alongside Jol's assistants Michael Lindeman and Cornelius Jol. Jol said: "We started off with him because he's probably a main figure here, at this club, he knows everything." On 4 May 2012, it was confirmed that Lewington would become England assistant manager alongside Roy Hodgson, who had just accepted the FA's offer to manage the England team, having previously managed West Bromwich Albion. On 27