Each week, Ste Tudor will cast his expert eye over the current state of the Premier League sack race - who will be the next manager to leave their position or be sacked in 2025/26?
In 2023, a detailed and depressing report by UEFA revealed that the average tenure of a manager across Europe’s top five leagues amounted to just 15 months.
That same year, there were 735 sackings in Europe’s top-flight divisions with the Premier League alone seeing 15 changes of head coach. That lofty figure focuses only on permanent switches, not the appointment of interim bosses, or managers resigning.
Incidentally, what an ironic word to use ‘permanent’ is. Just two years on, none of those 15 appointments are still in their roles.
When assessing the current roster of Premier League gaffers we find that 65% were appointed in 2024 or thereafter while three managers – Nuno Espirito Santo, Graham Potter and Ange Postecoglou - have already received their P45 a mere eight games in.
Is it any wonder therefore that football management is sometimes referred to as the most precarious job around? A lion tamer wearing Lady Gaga’s meat dress has better prospects, and more security.
What’s more, it only gets worse for the present crop because the sacking season is just around the corner, that time of the year when club chairmen collectively press the panic button in the blind hope that it doubles up as a reset.
Across the last 12 seasons, 89 Premier League managers have either been sacked or left via ‘mutual consent’ during the course of a campaign. A notable 51.6% of them had their desks cleared between mid-November and the end of February.
There are two ways of viewing this, neither of them right nor wrong, both subjective.
Should we put sentiment to one side, and the sobering acknowledgment that a man has temporarily lost his livelihood, we could perhaps admit there is some degree of logic to over half of top-flight sackings occurring in this period.
Because, even if employed that summer, a coach has had a transfer window, pre-season, numerous games and three international breaks to implement his methods and mould a team. If results are subsequently going from bad to worse it heavily suggests he is not the right fit for that club.
Alternatively, it could be opined that club owners these days are far too guilty of short-term thinking and that it typically takes a substantial amount of time to turn a team’s fortunes around.
After all, managers are very rarely appointed into a successful gig, complete with a happy changing room and players firing on every cylinder. They get the job in the first place because a team has fundamental issues that need to be addressed as priority before a new direction can be taken.
Regardless, this is the reality in which we now reside in, and furthermore there is another truth that must be recognized.
It is that a domino effect tends to occur. When one goes, another follows soon after.
With sackings taking place especially early this season that doesn’t bode well for those currently in the spotlight, their jobs very much on the line.
Premier League Manager Betting Odds:
- Vitor Pereira - 6/4
- Daniel Farke - 4/1
- Ruben Amorim - 6/1
- Bar - 10/1
And then there were three.
Ange Postecoglou’s dismissal at Nottingham Forest means a trio of top-flight gaffers have already been dispensed with this term and we’re still only in October.
Odds on this particular sacking were short in the football betting almost from the moment the Aussie took up residence at the City Ground, but it still shocks to see a manager leave his post after presiding over a mere eight games.
Ultimately though, the poor results tell the whole sorry tale. Forest accrued just one point in five Premier League contests, additionally losing to Swansea in the League Cup and Midtjylland in the Europa League.
Postecoglou’s departure tends to suggest it’s going to be one of ‘those’ seasons, a campaign that sees clubs intent on resetting early, rather than attempting to ride out the storm.
It’s a trend far removed from last season, when Erik Ten Hag was the first managerial casualty, the axe being swung in late October.
In 2023/24 meanwhile it took until early December before the first Premier League chairman took the nuclear option. (Though Julen Lopetegui left Wolves by mutual consent six days before the season’s opener).
We have to therefore go back to 2022/23 for the last time owners got twitchy en masse so early into a campaign.
Then, Scott Parker was jettisoned at Bournemouth just four games in, with Thomas Tuchel swiftly suffering the same fate a week later at Stamford Bridge.
On October 2nd, Bruno Lage got the boot at Wolves.
What is interesting here is how soon other clubs followed suit. Indeed, by early November two others – Ralph Hasenhuttl and Steven Gerrard – were gone.
So the big question is: Will we see another domino effect this time out? We can certainly state that at the time of writing there is no outstanding candidate, no manager odds-on in the sports betting to be the fourth departure of this term.
Wolves’ Vitor Pereira is currently priced up as favourite and with his team winless and rock-bottom of the top-flight it’s easy to see why. Yet there has been no dreaded vote of confidence for the Portuguese coach. There have been no protests from the fans, nor heavy scrutiny from local or national media.
Elsewhere, Ruben Amorim and Daniel Farke are both in the running and again there is evidence to suggest they are relatively fine, their jobs secure for the time being.
Scratch a little deeper though and key details soon change that perspective.
This coming Saturday, Wolves host Burnley, a pre-season favourite to drop who presently reside just above the bottom three. It is therefore an archetypal ‘six-pointer’, an extremely tense 90 minutes-plus that could define each club’s seasons.
It is following such games where boards tend to lose all patience should a loss occur, and let’s be honest, Wolves’ hierarchy aren’t the most patient around at the best of times. They have, after all, been mentioned numerous times already in this article.
Pereira’s position then is precarious, something the manager himself is pertinently aware of. “I’m worried,” he admitted after overseeing another defeat at the weekend.
Burnley also play a part in Daniel Farke’s position being less stable than it may first appear to be.
Last weekend the Clarets beat the Yorkshire side, in doing so condemning Leeds to back-to-back defeats that has placed them within reach of the bottom three.
With games against two-thirds of that bottom three - West Ham and Nottingham Forest – coming up before the next international break it would appear to be crunch time for the German and this after a promising start to their Premier League adventure.
Which leaves only Amorim and conversely in this instance the odds do not accurately reflect his true standing at present.
Though the 40-year-old is unquestionably under immense pressure at Old Trafford he is currently buoyed by consecutive victories, the second of which was a climate-changing, rare win at Anfield.
Moreover, comments recently made by Manchester United’s co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe in support of Amorim have to be taken into account.
Though his claim that the divisive coach can only be properly assessed after a three-year period was met with scepticism, and even ridicule from some quarters, it was indicative of United’s severe reluctance to once again pull the trigger on another failing manager.
They could yet see this one out to the bitter end.
What Is The Premier League Sack Race?
In 2023, a detailed and depressing report by UEFA revealed that the average tenure of a manager across Europe’s top five leagues amounted to just 15 months.
That same year, there were 735 sackings in Europe’s top-flight divisions with the Premier League alone seeing 15 changes of head coach. That lofty figure focuses only on permanent switches, not the appointment of interim bosses, or managers resigning.
Incidentally, what an ironic word to use ‘permanent’ is. Just two years on, none of those 15 appointments are still in their roles.
When assessing the current roster of Premier League gaffers we find that 65% were appointed in 2024 or thereafter while two managers – Nuno Espirito Santo and Graham Potter - have already received their P45 a mere seven games in.
Is it any wonder therefore that football management is sometimes referred to as the most precarious job around?
A lion tamer wearing Lady Gaga’s meat dress has better prospects, and more security.
What’s more, it only gets worse for the present crop because the sacking season is just around the corner, that time of the year when club chairmen collectively press the panic button in the blind hope that it doubles up as a reset.
How Many Premier League Managers Are Sacked?
Across the last 12 seasons, 89 Premier League managers have either been sacked or left via ‘mutual consent’ during the course of a campaign. A notable 51.6% of them had their desks cleared between mid-November and the end of February.
There are two ways of viewing this, neither of them right nor wrong, both subjective.
Should we put sentiment to one side, and the sobering acknowledgment that a man has temporarily lost his livelihood, we could perhaps admit there is some degree of logic to over half of top-flight sackings occurring in this period.
Because, even if employed that summer, a coach has had a transfer window, pre-season, numerous games and three international breaks to implement his methods and mould a team. If results are subsequently going from bad to worse it heavily suggests he is not the right fit for that club.
Alternatively, it could be opined that club owners these days are far too guilty of short-term thinking and that it typically takes a substantial amount of time to turn a team’s fortunes around.
After all, managers are very rarely appointed into a successful gig, complete with a happy changing room and players firing on every cylinder. They get the job in the first place because a team has fundamental issues that need to be addressed as priority before a new direction can be taken.
Regardless, this is the reality in which we now reside in, and furthermore there is another truth that must be recognized.
It is that a domino effect tends to occur. When one goes, another follows soon after.
With sackings taking place especially early this season that doesn’t bode well for those currently in the spotlight, their jobs very much on the line.
*Odds subject to change - prices accurate at the time of writing*
