This interesting article is concerned specifically with the rapid turnover of managers at Norwich City which Paul Lambert looks like ending, but also looks at the phenomenon more generally. There is a table listing the longest serving managers in English football, headed by Sir Alex Ferguson.
This interesting article is concerned specifically with the rapid turnover of managers at Norwich City which Paul Lambert looks like ending, but also looks at the phenomenon more generally. There is a table listing the longest serving managers in English football, headed by Sir Alex Ferguson.
Expectation levels seem to have risen in English football in recent years, both among fans and boards of directors. In any league, half the teams are going to be below the halfway point by definition. But for some teams even finishing in the top four is not good enough if no silverware is won. Arsene Wenger has been the subject of some criticism at Arsenal, even though most of us who are not Arsenal fans think he is a first class manager. At a lower level, Phil Parkinson has been the subject of constant criticism at Charlton despite getting the team to 4th place and losing out in the play offs by a very thin margin.
Football is a game of thin margins and managers do make a difference. They do recruit the team, although the starting point is always the previous manager’s choices and they are constrained by the budget available to them and (to varying extents) the preferences of the board. They take a (varying) role in training, select the team and the tactics and decide on substitutions. They also shout from the sidelines, although whether this has any effect (other than when there is a dead ball situation) is another matter. But they are not on the pitch or directly controlling the players.
The evidence suggests that a change of manager can bring a short-run boost in a team’s fortunes, but it tends not to endure. Charlton punched above their weight when we allowed Alan Curbishley to build up the team in a slow, patient fashion. But Curbishley had his critics: I knew him personally and thought that he was very shrewd. Iain Dowie came in and confirmed his subsequent record as a something of a relegation specialist (even though Alan Pardew was brought in to try and avert relegation).
The problem for a contemporary board is that promotion or relegation, qualification for the Champions League or even one’s final place in the Premiership has such a profound financial effect. In some cases the survival of a club can be at stake. But does giving the manager the dread ‘vote of confidence’ help to sort things out? And does changing the manager every season resolve more fundamental problems? Probably not, but in football the short term is often everything.