When is it a good time to sack a manager?
by Steve
Two months into the football season and there have already been several managerial casualties.
Perhaps the strangest, and least expected, is the most recent, Gareth Southgate. Southgate has been Middlesbrough boss since 2006, and took them to two mid-table Premiership finishes before last year’s relegation into the Championship. If he was going to get the sack, you would have thought it would have happened this summer. But instead, Chairman Steve Gibson took the advice of Tammy Wynette to heart and stood my his man.
Until now, that is. It is well-documented that many clubs have struggled in the Championship after dropping down. Middlesbrough, however, have held their own. They currently lie fourth, only one point off the top, and last night beat Derby County 2-0. So, Southgate was dismissed after a win, and with Middlesbrough in a very strong position to build on.
There have certainly been bad results this season, including a 5-0 home defeat to West Bromwich Albion, but the league table doesn’t lie. Middlesbrough could easily push on for promotion.
So why remove Southgate now? Has Gibson got someone lined up who he thinks will give Middlesbrough an extra edge? Has Southgate lost the confidence of players? Or has there been a grand falling-out behind the scenes? It will be interesting to see how this story develops.
Meanwhile, Liverpool lost their fourth consecutive game last night, with Lyon snatching a last-minute goal in a 2-1 at Anfield. To add insult to injury, Steven Gerrard left the pitch barely a quarter of the way into the game, injured. Liverpool are now on their worst run of results for 22 years. And the ever-patient Liverpool supporters are getting increasingly restless with manager Rafa Benitez.
Last night highlighted his managerial failings, certainly. The faults were manifold. There is clearly no quality replacement for Torres when he is injured. The substitutions were baffling. Gerrard goes off and is replaced by Auerlio, a defender. Benayoun, the most creative presence for Liverpool, is taken off with five minutes to go. Liverpool were set up to defend a 1-0 lead, rather than push for a bigger win, and almost inevitably came unstuck.
It’s a good job I was suitably satiated in a prime pub spot with a plate of scampi and chips, a pint of good beer, and my ever-understanding Significant Other (that is not my order of preference, by the way). Otherwise, my blood pressure would have been going through the roof at such a frustrating performance. Or maybe I’m just getting worringly used to Liverpool losing?
So, should Rafa go? I’m extremely wary of managers being sacked mid-season. While there then might be an initial surge with a new manager, does it really help in the long-term? And how many top-class managers are available right now?
Liverpool face Manchester United on Sunday, and things don’t get any easier for Rafa. A win would certainly be a reprieve. But if they lose in the manner of the past few games, or worse, more and more questions will be asked.
Wait until next year 
Personally I’d have kept Southgate on – he can’t be doing such a bad job given their league position. But I would be tempted to ask Rafa whether he wants to do the honourable thing and step down or suffer the indignity of the sack. And I would make him choose now, before the United game. IN the short term there is a very capable fellow at the club who could take over until a longer term replacement can be found. His name? Kenneth Mathieson Dalglish, current club ambassador. The last man to win top division titles in England with two different clubs, as I recall. Oh, and a club legend, lest anyone has forgotten.
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Dalglish is certainly an interesting choice for a replacement. It would be a popular one, too. While I know he is back at the club, I wonder if he’d be up for it, and how up-to-speed he is with the current Premiership.
He could certainly do a job in the short-term, but I’d be wary of anything longer – would we want to risk anything like the shambles of Keegan’s return at Newcastle? It’s never easy going back to an old job…
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Kenny has never pretended not to have suffered extreme remorse over his decision to quit Liverpool. Of course remorse and former glories are not reasons to bring in an old boy. As you say, the Keegan effect at Newcastle second time around did nothing to turn the club around. and there are parallels with the Liverpool situation – financial turmoil, owners who are unloved by the fans but who cannot get shot of the club, players performing well below par. But a short boost of the Dalglish variety until we can persuade a younger, more 21st century man to take over would be preferable to the slow, agonising punctures wounds which seem to be appearing everywhere at present.
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Hey Steve,
Hard to answer some of these questions because the specifics of a game situation is not usually the reason someone gets canned.
Reasons a manager gets fired…
1) Team fails to live up to expectations. If you expect a .600 winning percentage and you get .480, the coach gets sacked. Someone with a reputation can survive longer, or get away with it when there is a key injury or two, but that lasts about 18 months and then it’s “why haven’t you adjusted to the loss of ?”
2) Discord between manager and owners/general manager. Sometimes that’s ownership meddling, sometimes there’s a change upstream that affects the coach, and sometimes the coach says or does something that irks ownership.
3) A wildly obvious bad move that costs a very important game. Doesn’t happen REALLY often, but once in a while overmanaging or not making moves become fodder for bloggers and talk-radio. (Do that have that in England?) At that point, it’s only a matter of time.
4) Even the players no longer want to play for the guy and they need to hear the message from someone else. Usually it goes hand in hand with #1, but sometimes it doesn’t.
5) Lawlessness or Sex. Unless you are a legend, of course. Then, the coach can blame the media.
Your best shot to expedite the removal of your manager/coach is to send in some shameless women and a photographer.
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Does Rafa even have genitals? Seriously though, pleased with the response this afternoon but there were still some dodgy moments here and there. Luckily for us Manchester United were not in the mood to punish our mistakes while we pounced on theirs. Need a few more battling performances like this to restore my faith in Rafa’s tactics, however.
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Hi guys, many apologies for taking so long to reply – have been on a short break, and had no internet access.
Paul – welcome and thanks for stopping by! I think that’s a pretty good list of reasons why a manager gets the sack. It’s interesting that some of the reasons are not actually directly related to the team’s performance. A manager needs to manage relationships, as well as results. It also shows how important it is for the board, manager, players, and indeed fans, to have similar expectations for a club. If this breaks down, there’s generally trouble ahead.
Steven – Sunday was a great result. It’s a shame that Liverpool only seem to function at their best when it is ‘backs against the wall’ time. I agree that Man U could have provided more of a test, but then they haven’t been playing that well either. They are just better at grinding out results.
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ON that ‘backs to the wall’ quality, the best match report in the MOnday papers came from Kevin McCarra in the Guardian: “If every game were a life-or-death moment for Liverpool, they would probably turn out to be immortal.”
Clever, and probably true.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/oct/25/liverpool-manchester-united
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I think that’s where my train of thought came from, I forgot I’d read it there – should have credited it really! It was a well-worked article, I agree.
I think something similar was said last week on the Guardian’s Football Weekly podcast – that when Liverpool are losing, Rafa can no longer be so controlling and cautious and Liverpool can play with more freedom and creativity. I’m not sure I entirely agree on that point, but it’s an interesting one nonetheless.
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That Molby goal would be frowned on by Rafa in a way as it would mean Jan wasn’t doing his defensive job properly. The successful Liverpool teams of old did not stick to such rigid patterns of play, and that’s part of the problem with the current side. Despite what many in the press have said, there is a lot of talent at Anfield now, but they rarely get the shackles taken off, all have to go out and do a specific job on the pitch. I’m not saying we should suddenly go all Ajax ‘total football’ but more freedom of expression from the likes of Benayoun, Aquilani (when he’s ready) and even Ryan Babel might make the riskier approach more rewarding. Rafa is a cautious manager and he won La Liga twice that way. Five years in England ought to have taught him that it is not the way you win the Premier League.
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I think you’re right. Organisation has to be the priority with a limited side, but if you’ve got the skill within the side, you should unleash it. I think most Liverpool supporters would rather see the team go for a win, than sit back cautiously, even if it doesn’t always come off. It was tghe draws that killed last season, not the losses.
Benayoun has been the player of the season so far for me, and yet isn’t guaranteed a starting spot, one suspects because of his wandering, creative impulses.
Aquilani looked good from his brief cameo on Wednesday, so to give Rafa at least some credit, at least the squad has a slightly more attacking feel to it, with Glen Johnson too not a typical Rafa-type player. But tactically, more could be done.
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Benayoun is the current squad’s equivalent of Luis Garcia – very creative, got a brilliant footballing brain and sees passes that others don’t (he set up Torres superbly last Sunday). But he is suffering the same fate as Garcia in that Rafa does not seem to trust him enough. Only Gerrard is trusted to the extent that Rafa will let him go and do his thing but even he has been shoved into the wrong position and the wrong role far too often.
Aquilani looked encouragingly good in that ten minute spell. I hope he has put his injury stuff behind him and can concentrate on making people realise why we spent so much and why the loss of Alonso is not a disaster.
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