I can’t think of any sport in which managers are fired more hastily than in soccer, specifically in the English Premier League. But why is this? Think of the most successful sports coach you know. It’s more than likely that they’ve been managing their team for many years. You may say, “Well that’s because they succeeded at first and so they got to stick around and continue their success.” But how many of these managers really hit the bull’s eye in their first shot?
A successful coach that comes to mind is Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots. He started off his NFL career as the head coach of the Cleveland Browns with three losing seasons in a row. When he went to the Patriots in 2000, he started with a losing record. But he wasn’t fired straight away because of this; he maintained his position and won New England a Super Bowl the next year.
Coaches should be hired for their experience more than anything else. The more experience a coach has, especially managing a specific team, the more likely he or she is to have success. Despite a candidate’s previous record of overall “winning seasons” versus “losing seasons,” it’s almost impossible for them to have success at their new team immediately. And in the English Premier League, this piece of information seems to be ignored more often than not.
For example, since 1996, Chelsea F.C. has had 13 different managers, and Tottenham Hotspur F.C. has had 14. Tottenham has had a different manager for the last four seasons. This kind of discontinuity has been detrimental to Tottenham’s form in the last couple of years. Sir Alex Ferguson, on the other end of the spectrum, won 13 Premier League titles for Manchester United in his managing career at the club from 1986 to 2013.
The supporters of English soccer clubs, however, maintain their mindset that if you can’t get it done before one or two seasons are up, you’re a goner. They don’t have time to be sitting around while their team is relegated to a lower league in the midst of some sort of long-term plan; they want the highest level of competition, and they want it now.
One thing that is clear is that Premier League fans and team owners, who are often responsible for making the decision to hire or fire coaching staff, could do with a little, or even a lot more patience. Many fans are already talking of Manuel Pellegrini, manager of Manchester City F.C., getting ousted after this season. What success has he brought to Manchester you may ask? He’s won them the league cup and the Premier League title since he arrived in 2013.
If they wanted to have any sort of continuity, Manchester City would not let Pellegrini go after this season. Something tells me, however, that their rich, powerful owners will make like Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich and send Pellegrini on his way, following the modern trend of cashing out on a super-squad of all-star players, and throwing managerial continuity to the wind.