The Barclays is back and the transfer window closed, which means we can all focus on what really matters: which managers might get sacked?
Last season was a quiet one for manager departures, with by far the biggest one of the lot only happening at the very end of the campaign after a six-month farewell tour. But it did prompt a fair bit of early summer managergeddon and does mean quite a few new or returning faces among the 20 men in the race none of them want to win.
All hail the return of the Premier League Sack Race. Here’s a rundown of who’s likeliest to be packing their bags first and who can, for now, luxuriate in relative safety and security.
1) Sean Dyche
Appears so resolutely determined to stay and fight back whatever tides of despair are currently crashing into Goodison Park’s walls that if you didn’t know better you’d think he was positively revelling in all the adversity.
Go ahead, take more points off him. It only makes him win 1-0 more.
We couldn’t see Dyche as the first manager to leave at all, but we also couldn’t see them losing 3-2 when cruising along at 2-0 up with five minutes to go against Bournemouth. And enjoying the experience so much they immediately blew another two-goal lead against Villa. Dropping another couple of points from a winning position in a six-pointer against Leicester means that even getting off the mark feels like a setback.
2) Gary O’Neil
Six points from a possible 45 since being (really quite ludicrously, to be fair) linked with the Man United job. A sign of just how far the tentacles of doom can stretch from that accursed football club. Played really well for a really long time at Villa but ended up with nothing to show for it again to keep the pressure on with a record identical to Everton’s at the foot of the table.
3=) Russell Martin
We feared it might all go a bit Vincent Kompany for Russell Martin, and four defeats from four was definitely a bit Burnley. But the good news for the beleaguered Saints boss is that Burnley stuck with Kompany, didn’t they? Right up until he buggered off.
Russell Martin is the next manager of Bayern Munich, is what we’re saying here.
3=) Ange Postecoglou
The money keeps coming, and while acknowledging that if ifs and buts were candy and nuts etc etc. we do wonder what this market might look like had Spurs not managed to twice come from behind and win this week against Coventry in the Carabao and Brentford in the league. The second half of last season raised more questions than answers about the long-term viability of Angeball, an uncertain start to this campaign is only causing those questions to be asked louder, and Spurs are ever partial to a whiplash-inducing change of direction around November.
Their efforts this season have been deeply worrying. They are obviously good enough to thrash rubbish like Everton when the mood takes them, but they have already p*ssed away five points from games sensible teams would have won at Leicester and Newcastle before falling into a comically obvious trap in another defeat to Arsenal. They have been a mediocre team under Postecoglou for far, far longer than they were a good one and there is a growing sense that while it’s all quite fun he might actually be building – at, it should be noted, huge expense – the most ‘Lads, it’s Tottenham’ Tottenham team yet.
5) Erik Ten Hag
A messy few months at Manchester United amounted to what is perhaps the longest, most drawn out and least convincing vote of confidence ever issued.
There are surprising signs of competence and even some financial good sense at long last in the transfer market, but it still doesn’t quite feel like Ten Hag has full unwavering support from above and any repeat of last season’s (relative) struggles will see Ten Hag thrust firmly back into the full glare of the Sack Race spotlight.
Winning the first game of the season – however tightly – surely earned him a little grace which was duly squandered by losing yet again to Brighton. And it was his fault.
The question we find ourselves asking is what, precisely, has changed since the summer and it’s very hard to conclude the answer is currently anything other than very little indeed.
And that was before getting absolutely spangled at home by Liverpool, which is about as bad a thing as can happen to an under-pressure Manchester United manager, especially one who continues to place frankly unwise amounts of faith in the ‘trophy count means we’re second best behind only Man City’ delusion. Grateful to have a nice gimme at Southampton you’d imagine, and the good news keeps coming because lucky old United get to play Spurs quite soon.
6=) Eddie Howe
Could absolutely go tits skyward at any moment and there are clearly key figures at Newcastle not quite seeing eye to eye, and it would be fair to say Newcastle’s performances in their first four games weren’t really performances you’d expect to yield a hugely impressive 10 points. That run of fortune came to an end at Fulham in quite emphatic style.
6=) Steve Cooper
He has what is technically known as a team that is ‘sh*t’ and is clearly hoping to survive by trying to stay in games for as long as possible and see what can be pilfered. Not every team they play is going to be as naively stupid as Spurs, sure, but a lot of them are still quite stupid and most importantly it does look very much like Leicester’s best/least bad route.
Cooper might not keep them up, but he is new in the job and it’s also hard to see how anyone else they might get would improve their chances. So it probably does have to get very bad indeed before he’s in serious trouble. And two points from the opening four games probably isn’t that despite the specific nature of the late disappointment at Palace. Huge game next up against Everton.
6=) Enzo Maresca
Results are awkwardly not quite matching the narrative around Chelsea, who avoided complete catastrophe against City on the opening day and have been tidy enough on the pitch since despite the neverending swirl of chaos off it. Big away wins at Wolves and West Ham in particular have hinted at rich potential for Maresca’s side among all the nonsense.
9) Oliver Glasner
It’s been a chastening start to proceedings after last season’s sprint finish, but binning it all off would be a wild overreaction at this stage surely.
10=) Julen Lopetegui
Stormed out of Wolves days before the season began a year ago and West Ham is a club that could test the patience of a saint.
But he does have the advantage of a fanbase that was and is ready for a change from Moyesball and thus might give the new man longer than would otherwise be the case at a club where ambition and reality are only very occasionally aligned.
Really does have some of the very best attacking players outside the Big Six to work with, which hopefully reduces the potential for huffing off at the first sign of trouble. Which might be just as well, because four points from the first five games of the season isn’t great, is it? And that Chelsea defeat was a chastening one.
10=) Marco Silva
Fulham have spent the last couple of seasons in near invisibility in mid-table, which is very much a good thing. Rode out the loss of Alexander Mitrovic really well last season and once again be set for a year of bobbing about harmlessly enough in mid-table.
But it’s getting to a tricky point for Silva, in a way. He’s doing a perfectly adequate job, but almost if anything too adequate for me, Clive. He’s in danger of finding that unwanted zone where he’s invisible to bigger clubs who might be on the lookout for a new manager while by far the most likely way he does get noticed is if things start going very badly rather than very well.
10=) Thomas Frank
Sits quietly in the top 10 contenders for quite a lot of other jobs and does feel distinctly more likely to therefore be a very quick second manager out rather than first.
Brentford did flirt with serious trouble for uncomfortably long periods last season, but there was never any really serious chat about binning the manager who has done so very much for them and it would need to be going really, really badly for that to change this time around, you’d think. Have started this season perfectly well, with a pair of wins to go with defeats at Liverpool and Man City and Spurs which shouldn’t really be results to get anyone the tin tack.
10=) Nuno Espirito Santo
Forest are quite mad so rule nothing out but nine points from an unbeaten five-game start to the season is a huge buffer for a manager whos primary goal at the start of this season was the same as when he took over in the middle of the last: don’t go down. Getting three of those nine points at Anfield doesn’t do any harm at all, either.
14=) Kieran McKenna
Ipswich spent a good chunk of the start of the summer fending off interest in their manager and a difficult start to the season on their long-awaited return to the Premier League is surely baked in. Glib and simplistic it may be, but the comparisons between Luton and Ipswich and thus Rob Edwards and McKenna are easily made. And Luton never once looked like getting rid of Edwards last season.
14=) Andoni Iraola
Iraola’s Bournemouth ended the season in perfectly solid mid-table territory with plenty of signs they could kick on this year.
We suppose he could be in trouble if that doesn’t materialise but seems unlikely it could unravel fast enough for a manager clearly seen as a long-term plan by a club that did take quite brutal action to replace Gary O’Neil just over a year ago but is reaping the benefits of that hard-nosed approach now.
Far more likely, surely, that Iraola is poached rather than sacked, in which case he would be at worst the second Premier League manager to leave.
16=) Fabian Hurzeler
Another intriguing new face in Our League, tasked with getting Brighton back to where they were a year ago before things just took a turn for the dreary in Roberto De Zerbi’s first and final full season in charge.
They almost completely forgot how to win games in the second half of the season, which isn’t ideal, but the new manager made a quite literally perfect start in ironing out that particular wrinkle and a point at the Emirates is almost never a bad way to drop your first points of the season. Subsequent draws with Ipswich and Forest slightly more niggling, but no real drama.
16=) Pep Guardiola
It would be absolutely no surprise if this is his last season at Manchester City, but it would be a huge one if he leaves for any reason before its conclusion. Unless the FA somehow manage to turn his head with the England job.
Like we say, he’s not going anywhere. Not until next summer, anyway.
16=) Arne Slot
Liverpool’s home defeat to Forest stands as comfortably the most jarringly unexpected of the season to date, bringing to a shuddering halt a perfect start to the season that had got a lot of people quite understandably quite excited. Probably just a blip, but it’s a pretty significant one nevertheless.
19) Unai Emery
Obviously not going anywhere, despite the minor sting of not managing to land another blow on his former club in between tidy away wins to indicate Villa also have no plans on disappearing. Going 2-0 down to Everton before beating them 3-2 was just cruel, and points to a sinister and unpleasant side to the man we didn’t expect. Not cool.
20) Mikel Arteta
We’re still a bit in awe of just how quickly ‘Arsenal are 90-points-per-season title contenders now’ has just been entirely accepted and normalised. It’s still barely two years since they were bottling fourth place in really quite pitiful fashion. A lot has changed.
Could this be the season the apprentice finally gets the better of his master? Don’t know, but we are supremely confident neither of them will be the first manager out of a job. No fence-sitting for us.
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