16 Dec 2013

The fickle life of a football manager

Good perks but no job security – who would want to be a football manager? Two more have left their jobs today, joining former West Bromwich Albion boss Steve Clarke, who was sacked on Saturday.

Sounds fun but what is life like for a football manager? (Getty)

The end result is the same for both Andre Villas-Boas and Gianfranco Zola – recently departed managers of Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur and second-tier Watford, respectively – but their stories could hardly be more different.

Zola, who encountered difficulties this term after narrowly missing out on promotion last year, appears to have left on his own terms, and to have remained a popular figure. A statement released by the club said he would be welcome back there any time.

For his part, Zola wrote: “I feel that it is in the best interests of the team that somebody new is given the chance to bring the success which we have all hoped for and worked very hard for.

To many clubs, the manager is a ‘human sacrifice’ to be offered up when things take a downturn.

“It is for a variety of reasons, and not just over one matter or one moment, that I feel this is the right decision for me, in the best interests of the club – and I know I can trust you, the supporters, to respect my decision fully.”

Villas-Boas, however, has been fairly unceremoniously sacked after a summer of heavy spending on players, followed by what has been seen as failure in the Premier League. Some fans have been unhappy at this team’s style of play and embarrassed by heavy defeats to Manchester City and Liverpool. Nevertheless, Tottenham Hotspur sit in seventh place, only five points from a Champions League qualifying position.

‘Human sacrifice’

There was widespread speculation about the security of Andre Villas-Boas’ job following the 5-0 defeat by Liverpool on Sunday. But, according to one expert, his subsequent sacking is “hasty” and an example of “short term thinking”.

Simon Kuper, co-author of the book Soccernomics, said: “Tottenham are seventh in the table and normally a manager will expect to end with the club where the wage bill predicts. I would suspect their wage bill is about the sixth or seventh largest in the league, so he is not desperately higher or lower than you would expect.

“Spurs have historically been around the number ten club in the last 15 years. Their wage spending would be about eighth or ninth, so they marginally underperformed.

“There has been a general edging up of their wage spending and expectations. If you had said three months ago that they would be seventh in the league, most people would have said ‘that sounds about right’. They are maybe a place or two lower than you would expect, but nothing that cannot be rectified before the end of the season. There is not much justification on the basis of league position to sack the manager.”

One of the accusations levelled at Villas-Boas was that the club’s investment in the summer deserved a more convincing challenge in the upper reaches of the Premier League. He has not spoken publicly about his sacking but, when asked in a post-match interview if the signings were his, and if the players were the ones he wanted, he sounded less than convincing.

I’m not sure if I can make it public. We worked hard to build a strong team. Andre Villas-Boas, when asked about his signings

“I’m not sure if I can make it public. We have worked hard to build a strong team and we have a strong team and we are happy with the signings,” he said. The comment was interpreted as a subtle acknowledgment of what many suspected: the manager was not the man choosing which players to buy.

In 1992, the average tenure of a manager of one of the 92 football league clubs was three-and-a-half years. In the summer, that was a little more than a year. And only Arsène Wenger had been at his club for more than seven years.

The League Managers Association, which represents managers, has thus far been silent on the news. But, after the sacking of Steve Clarke, its chief executive was keen to point out that Clarke’s record had been good until recently – and that he had been given little time.

And statistics suggest the same could be said of Villas-Boas, whose average of 1.83 points per league match was the highest of all Spurs bosses since the Premier League began. He also narrowly missed out on Champions League qualification last year.

Rather than that, said Kuper, the issue is how managers are seen by their employers. He suggested that, to many clubs, the manager is a “human sacrifice” to be offered up when things take a downturn.

He suggested the timing of Villas-Boas sacking may have as much to do with the approaching winter transfer window as the recent heavy defeats.

“Maybe Tottenham are going to confer with a new manager on their possible January spending. Some managers will come in and say ‘I want to buy a whole new team’…look at the example of Paolo Di Canio at Sunderland.”

But, he said, handing the money to an executive, rather than a manager, is hardly surprising when the person on the touchline is seen as disposable.