One year, 241 days.
Less than two trips round the sun but apparently more than enough time for a manager to crash and burn in the searing heat of the Premier League’s atmosphere. ‘Sacking Sunday’, as it has already come to be known, saw the number of jettisoned coaches in England’s mercilessly ridiculous top-flight climb to 13 in a single season - one which has the best part of two months remaining - and dragged their average shelf-life down to an all-time low.
First up was Brendan Rodgers, a relative veteran in managing to last over four years, who could no longer convince the Leicester City board he remained their best hope in halting an alarming slide towards the relegation zone. Fans had been less supportive for some time, but it took the Foxes finally slipping into the bottom three with defeat to Crystal Palace to align decision-makers’ thinking with the paying customer.
Plenty expected the former Celtic manager to depart earlier in the season, but it appears previous achievements bought Rodgers some extra rope. After his sudden, acrimonious departure from Glasgow in 2019, the Northern Irishman won Leicester their first-ever FA Cup and took them to within one place of the Champions League on two occasions. But that has been followed by a decline which leaves the club justified in opting to look for a fresh start. You can argue Rodgers overachieved at his reign’s highest points, but he has certainly underachieved for some time since.
It renders his sacking a relatively uncontroversial one, the natural end of the relationship between manager and club. The other sacking of the day? Decidedly less easy to unpack.
The decision to fire Thomas Tuchel and replace him with Graham Potter felt odd at the time. Well, odd in most contexts, but very on-brand when the context is Chelsea. Having won the Champions League mere months after his arrival, there was a pronounced slump in form in Tuchel’s last days in London, yet one that transpired against a backdrop of immense upheaval.
READ MORE: Jurgen Klopp admits he is still Liverpool manager ‘because of the past’
Roman Abramovich’s ownership had come to a messy conclusion, succeeded by the Todd Boehly-led consortium, who quickly confirmed they would be no less bombastic in their running of the club. Boehly embarked on a relentless summer spending spree that welcomed 10 new faces into Tuchel’s squad. The former Borussia Dortmund manager began toiling to find the best formula for all these new elements, and early season results reflected that.
Could Tuchel have done better in that time? Probably. Was a sacking still premature? Given what has gone on since, you’d have to say yes.
Recruiting Potter from Brighton was supposed to herald a change in tact from a notoriously trigger-happy club. The message from Boehly and his associates was that long-term thinking was here, and here to stay at Stamford Bridge. When the club went on another staggeringly expensive recruitment drive in January, there were assurances that this was all part of a masterplan; the front-loading of Potter’s squad for a fast-track return to the elite which would pay for itself in silverware and prize money further down the line.
But barely two months since Boehly put his chequebook away, Potter has been turfed out. A man they were prepared to invest millions upon millions of pounds in – massive wages in a five-year contract, even more massive transfer spending – thrown to the scrapheap after only seven months in the job. True, the ex-Brighton boss did not look up to the task at hand, but that he was brought in to replace a proven world class coach, backed to the hilt with eye-watering expenditure only to then be unceremoniously dumped when results were not immediate points to a managerial culture in the Premier League that is completely broken.
Chelsea are now indicating they will take their time in appointing Potter’s successor, effectively writing off the remainder of the season just weeks after attempting to buy their way back into the elite in double quick time. At current speed, Boehly is on track to ensure history will reflect on the Abramovich era as comparatively tranquil.
In a saner world, Chelsea’s turmoil might serve as a cautionary tale for chairmen with itchy trigger fingers, but the odds dictate - especially as the spectre of relegation begins to loom large for several clubs – that Potter will not be the last coach on the chopping block in this bloodbath of a campaign. Even Jurgen Klopp has felt the heat, the most successful manager in Liverpool’s modern history. The German freely admitted on Monday that the only reason he still has a job is because of past glories – as though they are somehow ancient history and not a mere blink of an eye ago.
That there has been serious discussion over whether Klopp might lose his job after an admittedly disappointing season shows the lunacy of how managers are treated in England’s top-flight. His Liverpool team need a rebuild, yet surely no one has earned the right to conduct it more than Klopp, given how he dragged the club away from years of painful mediocrity and back to being a continental superpower.
READ MORE: Six contenders to replace Graham Potter as Chelsea head coach
Crucially, he did it because he was given time to do so. Even Pep Guardiola needed two seasons to make Manchester City winners again. Manchester United appear to be setting such a course with Erik ten Hag, but it will be interested to note how much pressure he finds himself under should their current drop in form manifest into something more sustained.
The mean managerial tenure dropping below two years comes at the end of a week where Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger, two coaches whose managerial dynasties were built on trust and patience even when times were tough, were inducted into the Premier League’s Hall of Fame with the acknowledgement we may never see their likes again.
As brilliant as Ferguson and Wenger were, they lived a charmed life compared to a current crop who are forever fending off existential threat.
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