The Precarious Position of the Football Manager

From bottom to top in football, managers are the all-too-frequent casualties of under-performance on the pitch. You would never expect Fernando Torres to be handed his P45 for not scoring enough goals. Or Joe Hart having his contract terminated for not keeping a single clean sheet in 10 games. It must be both unsettling and confusing therefore when a manager loses his job within a matter weeks of being handed it.

Just yesterday evening, Neil Warnock “parted company” with Leeds United. The club languishes at mid-table after losing 2-1 to Derby County on Easter Monday. They have been stranded in The Championship – either side of an appearance in League One between 2007 and 2010 – since relegation from the top flight in the 2003-04 season. That’s almost a decade of underachievement, on the back of financial mismanagement and executive confusion.

A pattern of “revolving door syndrome” is reaching almost laughable levels at another former Premier League mainstay – Blackburn Rovers. A period of exactly six months at Ewood Park has seen three different managers at the helm. Growing discontent, verging on hatred, for the club’s owners among Rovers fans is not aided by the Venky’s habitual hiring and firing policy.

Steve Kean was the first of the three to lose his job after two years in charge. Former Rovers player Henning Berg – part of the famous Premier League winning side of 1994/5 – was appointed, then inexplicably sacked again just 57 days later. His successor Michael Appleton lasted just ten days longer than that, leaving the club with a caretaker manager in Gary Bowyer.

Fans and neutrals alike have gone from dismay and disgust to acceptance and expectation of this kind of activity. A perhaps even more confusing scenario is currently being played out at League One’s Stevenage Borough. The club have sacked Graham Westley twice already, most recently in March of this year after a run of 14 defeats in 18 games. They have now re-appointed him, with his first game back in charge ending in victory over Hartlepool.

All of the above points to one sad, seemingly obvious fact: the position of manager at any professional football club is a fragile one. Directors and chairmen can sit behind the desk and the chequebook for decades without so much as a sniff of the exit door, yet when it comes to a fall guy they point straight to the ‘gaffer’. This brings me back to my initial observation about where the blame lies.

£50m-worth of Spanish centre-forward or a first choice international goalkeeper, both of whom take home a substantial pay packet each week. In between these we have nine other accomplished professional players that have represented their countries in some form. No wins in five games and the owners declare a crisis and go in search of “a change” in approach. Does he replace his misfiring striker, greasy palmed keeper or piano-carrying centre half? The simple answer is ‘no’.

It takes something far more serious for a player to immediately lose his job. Failing a drugs test will sometimes do it, as evidenced by Adrian Mutu. You can also get sent to prison. It’s safe to say, that in a normal place of work, if you simply don’t deliver on your duties you will quite easily be shown the door.

In the football world, the same is true only for the manager.