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“If you feel this then it is right to continue to play. I think John has all of these characteristics.
“John deserves the best. He is a legend for this club and in this season he has been very important to winning this title, and for this reason I have to take my time and make my best decision for him.”
Sunderland are without 11 senior players through injury as they bring the curtain down on a season to forget.
The Wearside club will return to the Championship after a decade in the Premier League where they have largely been reduced to an annual struggle for top flight survival.
Didier Ndong and Lamine Kone speculation for some time but Mazzarri insists he achieved his main objective for the season by avoiding relegation and says he will be disappointed to go.
“When you leave an era like this, it’s normal to feel sad,” said the 55-year-old former Napoli and Inter Milan handler.
“I want to say that I always gave everything I had at Watford.
“I worked 15 hours a day, every day and I’m tired. I’m also happy as I reached another objective in my career which was to avoid relegation here.
“I’m a bit disappointed as I was embraced by the Watford family, so it’s normal to be emotional as it’s been my home since the first day I was here. I’m very tired now and need to relax.
“The fact is we managed to get to this magic 40-point mark which was the main objective of the season when there were six games left.” AFP have joined an already lengthy list of absentees in the aftermath of the 2-0 defeat to Arsenal that confirmed they will finish bottom of the table.
Jan Kirchhoff, Paddy McNair and Duncan Watmore are all long-term absentees, but beleaguered manager Moyes is missing a number of other players for the trip to west London.
Steven Pienaar remains unavailable with an ankle problem while George Honeyman is recovering from a back injury and Papy Djilobodji is struggling with a thigh problem.
Sunderland fans travel south fearing the worst for the top versus bottom clash that could bring a chastening end to a dismal season.
“I certainly don’t want us to be embarrassed, that’s for sure. My biggest problem is that we’ve got 11 senior players out injured,” Moyes said.
“We’ll have to put a patchwork team out to try and get a positive performance, because we were obviously up against opposition of a much higher level than us.” AFP