Last man standing - The death of the long term football manager

21 October 2014 12:01

He was once in abundance.every team in the four divisions of both the English and Scottish leagues from Land’s End to John O'Groats could claim to have one. In the Premier League alone, there is now only one of his kind remaining.

allow me to introduce, the death of the long-term football manager.

One could say it all began with the introduction of the foreign owner under the gaze of Sky TV and its purchase of the rights to show football in the UK. However, the practice in the Spanish and Italian leagues of firing a manager after only one or two seasons has been commonplace since the 1970's.

In the UK though, a trend that began slowly and was initially dismissed as a ‘fad’ that wouldn't stay the course has now descended into full blown reality. A chance look on Wikipedia recently at the history of the Premier League prompted me to look at the list of current managers for each club in the division.

I was alarmed to discover that apart from Arsene Wenger who has been at the helm of the Gunners for 18 seasons, every other manager has been in their prospective roles for no more than 4 years.

When you consider that Wenger's closest rival is Alan Pardew, whose own position at Newcastle which appears to be ever more untenable with each passing week, it’s a dreadfully sad state of affairs.

The period covering February to August 2014 alone saw six new managers sweep through the doors of various clubs in the top flight. Among them, Louis Van Gaal and Mauricio Pochettino took up their new posts within a week of each other at Man.Utd and Tottenham respectively.

In the lower divisions such as the Championship, the situation gets even more bizarre with 12 new managers coming in between mid-June and early October this year. The managerial merry-go-round has a lot to thank the owners at Watford for, especially with the Hornets entertaining three different bosses in seven days.

North of the border, the trend has followed that of the EPL where all but one of the 12 clubs has installed a new coach since January 2013. Motherwell’s Stuart McCall must feel like the grand-daddy of the SPL despite only holding his own post since the fag end of December 2010.

Amid this current climate, I would never make a good owner….reason? I don’t like change…

Source: DSG