Premier League managers seem safer with sack-happy culture on wane
Has the closeness of the Premier League meant chairmen are finally resisting pulling the trigger as soon as a poor run occurs?Newcastle's Chris Hughton was the first Premier League manager to be sacked last season - on 6 December. Photograph: Craig Brough/Action Images
Jamie Jackson
The Guardian, Wed 30 Nov 2011 15.39 GMT
Blogpost
In the sack-happy culture of football, next week could prove a landmark in the fragile life of a manager. If all 20 Premier League No1s wake on Wednesday still employed, a record will be set and a trend may be developing.
Newcastle United's Chris Hughton was dismissed by Mike Ashley on 6 December last year, the first to go in the 2010-11 season. Before that, at least one Premier League manager had been sacked by then in every term this century (Martin O'Neill, who left Aston Villa just before the campaign started, resigned).
To explain this season's lack of changes Neil Warnock points to the Premier League's competitiveness, where Aston Villa in eighth are separated by nine points from bottom-placed Blackburn Rovers. "Everybody's so close," the Queens Park Rangers manager says. "Apart from the top seven teams, from Villa below, everybody knows they're in a battle."
While it may be too early to declare that chairmen are finally resisting pulling the trigger whenever a poor run occurs, a shift is found throughout the game, with only six managers sacked so far in the Football League, again lower than every season this century except for last term. "Stability is key, you need time in any job – more so than ever at the minute," Warnock says. "That's what the owners are trying to do. When you look at the Premier League they're all trying to support their managers – I look at Chelsea and clubs like that."
The League Managers Association, though, urges caution. Since the Premier League was formed in 1992 160 managers have been removed – an average of more than eight each season who are forced to look for a new job. Last year, 50% of clubs across all four divisions finished with a different man in charge, while around half of first-time managers are not employed elsewhere.
"We normally review the stats in December and that's when we'll know whether or not there's been a change," says Richard Bevan, the LMA chief executive, before offering the following reasons for the past two seasons' trend. "There's always less sacked in the Premier League than the Football League, and we have some incredibly talented and experienced managers. If you were the owner of Wolverhampton Wanderers you wouldn't want other than Mick McCarthy or Roberto Martínez [at Wigan Athletic], or Sir Alex Ferguson or Roberto Mancini at the top."
Jez Moxey, the Wolves chief executive, agrees: "You must get the right manager. Once you think you have, maintaining him in the post over the medium to long term has a whole range of benefits that perhaps aren't seen by supporters and others if they don't get immediate results."
Bevan is clear regarding the advantages of stability. "At the end of last season 50% of our clubs had had their manager in for less than 12 months, so that brings a nervousness around the boardroom, the fans, the local media, the players," he says. "In any form of working life – business, government or sport – you need time to build your team and deliver that philosophy on what you're looking to achieve. So from that perspective, it's great news that no Premier League manager has been relieved of his duties.
"Hopefully the owners are recognising that if they want to achieve their objectives they've only got to look at Sir Alex Ferguson celebrating 25 years this season. In the main I think most do recognise that. Clubs are beginning to recognise that they have to manage the expectations around them. For example, for the owners of Blackburn Rovers [Venky's], it was nonsensical for them to come out and say: 'We're looking to finish in the top four or five.' I don't think you'll say many statements like that."
Moxey believes ditching a manager too soon is foolish. "The downsides of changing are enormous and costly – it's almost like a roll of the craps dice," he says. "As long as they are doing the things that you want them to do and in the way the club is set out [it should be OK]."
Bevan agrees that both the board and manager must have a shared vision. "From a manager's perspective everyone has a different objective. For some survival will be an achievement in itself, others it's trophies or promotion. One of our guys said the other day it's about: 'Staying in the race long enough to win.' If you look at any other industry or went to any business school they would tell you that if you change the most important person in your organisation every 10 months it doesn't take rocket science to recognise that all you're going to achieve is nowhere near your fans' expectations.
"What you need to do is look at the core business and make sure the people running the clubs are having very close liaison with the key personnel. An example: until recently I haven't seen in many clubs a written document of what the board is looking to achieve with the manager and the players. In business we call them key performance indicators. We are glad that for a lot of chairmen, chief executives and managers the communication is beginning to improve, that they are saying: 'Let's meet on a quarterly basis to ask what are our goals? OK, we haven't achieved our last quarter, let's set our expectations for the next quarter, for where we want to be. Let's make sure the fans, the local media don't think we should be top of the league.'"
December, though, can still be the cruellest month: after Hughton last year, five more managers were axed before the new year.
― Ismael Klata, Wednesday, 30 November 2011 20:11 (twelve years ago) link