Being a coach of a team from the Premier League is a dream for many professionals around the world. The English league is the strongest and most disputed, and some of the best teams in the world play in it.
Years ago, the leaders of English teams were some of the most tolerant towards coaches in Europe, as they had a huge carte blanche to develop their teams. Even during a series of poor results, their work was not threatened.
Imagine scenarios where Sir Alex Ferguson was fired from United after 1-2 unsatisfactory results. The history of the Premier League would simply not be the same!
Well, everything may have changed with Roman Abramovich’s arrival at Chelsea. The Russian was not hesitant to change coaches in the club after a few bad matches, and most of the other clubs gradually began to do the same.
The times when Sir Alex Ferguson led Manchester United for 27 years, Arsene Wenger led Arsenal for 22 years, and David Moyes was on the sidelines of Everton for 11 years are long gone. But even now, there are managers who seem unchangeable. Pep Guardiola has successfully led Manchester City for 7 years, and Jurgen Klopp has been at the helm of Liverpool for over 8 years.
However…
This season, the English championship set a negative record for the number of departing managers within 1 campaign – a total of 13 changes, most of which were after dismissal.
The latest departures are Antonio Conte from Tottenham and Graham Potter from Chelsea. Before them, the exit was shown to Patrick Vieira from Crystal Palace, Brendan Rodgers from Leicester, Scott Parker from Bournemouth, Frank Lampard from Everton, Thomas Tuchel from Chelsea. Steven Gerrard was removed from Aston Villa, Wolverhampton fired Bruno Lage, and Southampton dismissed Ralph Hasenhuttl. Leeds also had a coaching change, releasing Jesse Marsh, and shortly thereafter, Southampton made an inclusion and replaced their new manager Nathan Jones.
All these changes show that being a manager in England is a fairly easily replaceable position. However, everything is done in the name of teams playing better and winning their matches. The pressure on players from owners, fans, and sponsors for results creates a great deal of tension in the team and its gameplay.
Football managers seem to ignore the fact that if a coach has a plan and strategy for developing his club, it takes time above all to achieve success.
As an example, we can mention Mikel Arteta, under whom Arsenal is playing great this season and is in the title race. This was not the case last season when the “Gunners” finished fifth in the final standings and often alternated between good and bad matches. Nevertheless, the Spaniard was given more time and the results are there.
Nevertheless, the Premier League has already set a record for the number of dismissals, but whether more coaching heads will roll by the end of the season remains to be seen. The question now is, is it worth leading a team in England if your career in a given club may end in just a few months?
