Professional sport is inevitably a result-driven business, but the pressure on football managers and their teams seems to have reached new levels of ridicule. After 16 games of this football league season, 16 clubs have a different manager to the one who started the season. Thirteen have been sacked, with three others moving to new clubs after vacancies became available. Four clubs are still yet to name a permanent successor and two have only just appointed, to show the short-sightedness of it all.
It means that more than one-fifth of the 72 football league clubs are already on plan B for one reason or another with still around two-thirds of the season to play. The most recent is Darren Ferguson, who was dismissed (it is now saying ‘mutual consent’, but first reports said he was dismissed – anyway, why would he have wanted to go?) after a difficult start to Championship life with Peterborough United. Did the club expect anything different though? People have incredibly short memories. Ferguson had guided Posh to two consecutive promotions, basing his success on the signing of several good players from non-league football. These include the impressive attacking trio of Craig Mackail-Smith (Dagenham and Redbridge), Aaron McLean (Grays Athletic) and George Boyd (Stevenage Borough).
It was bound to take time for both he and his charges to adjust – many haven’t played at this level. Chris Welpdale was playing for Billericay Town not so long ago. Ferguson himself hasn’t managed there. The local press has been bemoaning results and sights were set high at the start of the season by all. But it’s unrealistic. The last time I saw Posh prior to this season, they were sliding out of League One in poor shape. That cued the arrival of Ron Atkinson and the Sky cameras to the club for a documentary which must have made their fans cringe. They were a laughing stock.
Now, they are a young, energetic fluent side. They pass the ball and move. Sure they are a little naïve defensively and results haven’t been great but Ferguson leaves following a 3-1 league defeat at Newcastle. Is that so disastrous in the bigger scheme of things? It probably shows the irony of it all. Surely he deserved some backing – instead he got a sacking. Ferguson is not the only manager to suffer this season. Gareth Southgate – who became the 14th manager to go – remarkably went following a 2-0 win (yes WIN in true BBC videprinter style) over Derby! What has happened since his departure? One point in three games. Brilliant.
Still, perhaps he should count his blessings as Bryan Gunn lost his job at Norwich City after one league game and one cup match. They did lose the League One fixture 7 -1 (yes, SEVEN) at home to Colchester, but he departed faster than the speed of light. If he wasn’t wanted as manager, why was he given all summer to reshape the club? All of the above facts make grim reading – and the stats don’t stop there. In 1992, the average tenure of the dismissed managers was 2.72 seasons according to a study by the League Managers’ Association. Over the last five years, that average stay figure has dropped to just over two seasons.
That is a sad statistic, and shows how expectation levels at clubs have reached ridiculously high levels. Most recent figures quoted on the website say that the current average reign in the Premier League is just shy of four seasons. That appears (to my maths) not to be a figure based on dismissed managers, but rather a look at the current employees. The number appears to be calculated by combining every current manager’s reign and dividing it by their number, so even those figures look better due to two long servers. Indeed, if you take the combined 36 seasons of Darren’s father Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger out of the equation, you’d get approximately 2.3 seasons as an average of the other 18. The Merseyside duo of David Moyes and Rafa Benitez also bump that figure up considerably. From the Championship down, the combined reigns give a current average of well under two. Only ten football league managers have served their clubs for more than three seasons – an eleventh joins that list next month.
In League One, the current average reign of those in power is just 1.26 seasons. Four managers have already been sacked this season, with Paul Lambert also moving after deciding to switch from Colchester to Norwich – after sticking seven past them! If Norwich had wanted him that badly, why not have appointed Lambert in the summer? Let’s face it, they reacted to one result. Perhaps they were so impressed they felt the job had to be given to him and it may prove to be an excellent decision. But the rationale was all wrong. Sure it may have been an eye-opener and a name for a little black book to be considered further down the line, but he was appointed just ten days later.
So why all of the early movement? It’s not just a trend for this season, it happens a lot. Apart from May (which accounts for end of season sackings), stats from 1993 to 2005 showed that October is the month where people traditionally get fired the most. November wasn’t far behind then, and I’m sure recent stats would show that trend continuing. But why? The pressure and speculation is far too high for starters. Some teams are going to start badly – it’s a fact of life. League tables are produced after one game. With top two, play-off and relegation cut-off lines. After one game a team is said to be bottom of the league! You drop into the bottom three after two games. It’s a joke.
Conversely, teams who start the marathon at a sprint pace are talked up. They’re going up, they’re in the play-off zone after a couple of matches, etc. This is equally silly. Let it settle. Certain teams like Coventry always set off like they have a train to catch – then they derail. A proper league table should be produced at around ten games at the earliest, and even then there is no need to panic if you’re struggling. However, there is so much rubbish written and spoken nowadays, from pundits, to ‘experts’, to the media, to fans in general.
There is talk about ‘must-win’ games in early November, debate about matches being crucial, critical, all-important and so on. There is speak about various clubs in crisis. There is talk about negativity if a side plays one up front, even if there are lots of midfield runners and the team looks threatening. Generally, it is all a load of bollocks. Was anything ever won or lost in November? Sure, a defeat at this stage has a bearing on final standings, and certain losses may prompt you to question how the season is developing. But that’s the point – a season develops. Fortunes fluctuate. Form changes. You can talk about it, debate it and so on, but surely a manager should only go in absolutely dire situations. Not at the drop of a hat.
Sure, a change at the top can have an impact – and at some times it is needed. But it is absolutely stupid at the moment. Last season, just over half of all managers who started the season had left by its conclusion. The narrative of the campaign isn’t allowed to develop. Inconsistent teams are hit by a lack of stability, which breeds further inconsistency. It is a vicious cycle. The only way out of this mess is to stick by the manager you decide to choose to run your club.
Judging a manager purely on results may be lovely in terms of facts and statistics, but it is not pragmatic. For a start, only 46 clubs can win on any given weekend. If every manager entered any given game knowing his team had to win for him to survive, at least half the managers would be gone by the end of the weekend. If every game was drawn, everyone would go! It is okay to say that a club ‘must go up’ or ‘must stay up’ for whatever reason, but there is no divine right. Only a select few can get promoted and teams have to be relegated. Even if every team played well in every game over a League One season, four would still be relegated. It’s the nature of the beast.
Phil Brown has been another recent example of a manager getting unfair criticism. Sure, Hull City have struggled in the Premier League throughout 2009 and the statistics aren’t great reading. But Brown got them promoted and has technically been the best manager in their history. So why so much pressure? Lo and behold, after a week of ridiculously intense speculation which suggested he would be dismissed if they did not win their next fixture, Hull beat Stoke City on Sunday in the dying seconds. Brown himself laughed it off – I guess that’s all you can do. The day you lose your sense of humour is probably the day you jack it all in!
But say his job did actually depend on that result. His team did not lead until the 91st minute. How would you deal with that situation? How could you think rationally at half-time when your team is trailing? Did he keep his job on the basis of one goal – a rebound following a goalkeeping blunder? Is that a fair way to assess his managerial ability? Of course it isn’t. Of course football teams need results to achieve their targets, but there is more to it than that. Take the side I support, Doncaster Rovers. We aren’t flying high in terms of league position at the moment, but I won’t tolerate any nonsense spoken about our excellent manager, Sean O’Driscoll.
We don’t splash out stupid amounts of money on players and have a wage cap of £5,000 a week. Despite our inability to compete financially with a lot of Championship clubs, we are still holding our own in the division. We play with style and spirit in equal measure. We are a joy to watch, I am proud to support the club. Indeed O’Driscoll – who, at three years and a month is the 15th longest serving manager in English football – has continued the good work of Dave Penney and got Donny playing some great football. Never before has the town seen a side who pass the ball so fluently or move so fluidly. We have had just those two managers since 2001, and have based our success on supporting our main man – not firing him.
We were bottom on Christmas Day last season yet were one of the form teams in the second half of the season. Indeed, we would have finished above champions Wolves had the table started from December 26. John Ryan could easily have reacted to our early struggles but he stood by his manager. He trusted him. Now, sure, we often don’t get results that our performances deserve but doesn’t the pleasure of watching your team also come in the minor details as well as the end result? Surely you want to see your side go about things with good method and clever pieces of skill.
Surely that is why you pay the money and travel all over the country to watch them in action? If we were in it for the glory and the pure winning of everything, we’d all follow Chelsea and Manchester United. I don’t support Donny for the glory. They are my team and I’ve seen them lose at home to Forest Green in the Conference after dominating the game and being hit on the break. I won’t, therefore, let a defeat in the second tier of English football curb my enthusiasm and affect my judgement – like Peterborough did. Yes I hate losing, but if it’s done in the right manner then you can take it on the chin. Sure losing hurts, but it hurts the players and manager too. O’Driscoll leads us with integrity; refusing to criticise officials and belittle opposition. Nobody has a bad word to say about him in the game. By and large, our performances are excellent – regardless of results.
This means that I admire his work, and will refuse to call for his head just because we have only won two league games so far this season. He turned things around last season, and he can do it again this time. Even, in the worse case scenario which would see us get relegated, I would be more than happy for him to continue in charge of our club. He is a gem. We were named the football league’s biggest over-achievers in a poll last year. We are punching above our weight.
What happens is that you become a victim of your own success. Other high-spending clubs soon recognise what good players you have and nick them because they can match your fee and double the player’s wage. Expectations rise stupidly and you are not judged fairly. O’Driscoll has seen Leicester and Reading snatch Richie Wellens and Matt Mills away for three million pounds between them. You’re in a no win situation. Can you replace the players you’ve lost? No. Not on the same scale, at least. Our record fee is £300,000.We pay a maximum of £5,000 a week. Do you adjust all of that because you have money in the pot? No. Because it is unrealistic. So what can you do? Bring players in that fit your budgets. You hope to find another rough diamond. Can you lower expectations? No. Because people get carried away and get used to success. Those expectations have cost Ferguson his job and have put Brown in the media spotlight at Hull. Some fans will question O’Driscoll purely on the stats, like they did at this stage last season. Like Renton’s famous quote in Trainspotting, it is a shite state of affairs.
Everyone needs to see the bigger picture. Is it really all the manager’s fault when the team loses a few games? Do any of us really know our current manager’s winning ratio? Can any of us, off the top of our heads, recall the exact number of wins and finishing positions over the last few years? The answer, to all of that is probably no. And that is because fans of most clubs do it for the pleasure of watching, not the glory. We do it for the memories, not the statistics.
Unless you support Chelsea or Manchester United or so on, fans have to get used to not winning. Shit happens. We support our teams because if we didn’t care about them, who would? We do it because at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon (unless television decides to intervene) we want to follow our team. Yes, we want to see them win, but we have followed it long enough to know there will be setbacks, disappointments and defeats along the way. For us, the next game always comes along and we get to hope again. There is always the chance for redemption. Managers aren’t always so lucky.
