How long will it be this season before the first manager is sacked? Not that long if prior experience is anything to go by. As the season progresses, we can expect more managers to be sacked. Managerial tenure is become shorter.
But does sacking the manager actually make a difference? Sue Bridgewater of Warwick Business School in her book Football Management suggests that it does not: ‘managerial changes in football do little to improve performance.’
How long will it be this season before the first manager is sacked? Not that long if prior experience is anything to go by. As the season progresses, we can expect more managers to be sacked. Managerial tenure is become shorter.
But does sacking the manager actually make a difference? Sue Bridgewater of Warwick Business School in her book Football Management suggests that it does not: ‘managerial changes in football do little to improve performance.’
She notes, ‘if we look at the Premier League since 1992 it would appear that … clubs do rather less well once the initial honeymoon period has passed than they did before changing their manager.’ If, for example, a manager was dismissed 18 games into the season the club – on average – might gain around 3 points in the 12 game upturn but lose 2 points over the remaing games.’
In short, ‘A net gain of one point for a considerable outlay and ongoing lower performance.’ Sue’s analysis of club finances suggests that spending money on better players might have a greater effect than using it to pay off the manager.
Why should this be so? It may well be that we exaggerate the impact of leadership on performance. The manager is the first person fans blame. They are less likely to blame the players, although often they have a ‘scapegoat player’ who is monitored closely for every defect in his performance. Any good piece of play is dimissed as a fluke and it’s the manager’s fault for selecting him in the first place.
In practice, ‘performance might be affected by the quality of players, injuries or just luck rather than anything which the manager does.’ I would add to that list poor decisions by officials: I am not convinced that they necessarily balance out over a season.
In any case there are downsides to getting rid of the manager. It ‘brings with it disruption which, in itself, can have a negative effect on performance.’ There are different phases in a football manager’s lifespan and ‘performance may take a downturn whilst the manager is rebuilding for the longer term.’
Of course, Sue Bridgewater points out that all this does not mean that a club should never change the manager. This may be necessary when there is sustained decline in performance, although what is difficult is to decide what is a sustained decline and what is a blip.
In general, however, the data suggest that ‘clubs panic and pull the trigger during minor blips in performance rather than a sustained decline. Moreover, the lever at which they do this is getting higher, and the benefits gained from the switch may be less significant than they anticipate.’ Good advice which may not be heeded.