Football: Sacking stats show long-serving managers relic of past

Alan Pardew resigned from his job as manager of Newcastle in January. Photo / AP

English football is heading for a record number of managerial sackings this season, according to figures compiled by the country's managers' union.

The League Managers Association's quarterly manager statistics showed more managers were dismissed in the first eight months of 2014-15 than at the same stage of any previous campaign.

The LMA recorded 40 sackings before March 31, four more than the previous record and only six shy of the landmark 46 set at the end of the 2006-07 season.

With three more managers having lost their jobs this month, the LMA expects that to be exceeded, taking the average tenure of a league manager below the 18-month mark.

The Championship has proven by far the most trigger-happy division this season thanks to 16 managerial dismissals before the end of March.

That is already a record for an entire campaign, with Wigan Athletic's sacking of Malky Mackay this month taking the total to 17 - four more than the previous high of 13 from two years ago.

However, Premier League sackings have dropped from eight to five year-on-year, meaning last season's record total of 12 is unlikely to be surpassed.

The LMA said that the average tenure of a league manager was just 1.57 years, a figure which fell to below a year (0.94) in the Championship.

The Premier League average is 2.27, although that would immediately plummet to 1.34 were Arsene Wenger's 18-year stay at Arsenal to come to an end.

The LMA also said that 15 of the 40 sackings this term were of first-time managers, more than half of whom do not get a second job.

One of those to buck the trend is Chris Powell, who lost his job at Charlton Athletic in March but was the first man given a new one this season when Huddersfield Town sacked Mark Robins just one game into the Championship campaign.

Powell said that the new £5.5 billion domestic Premier League television deal had made the life of a second-tier manager more precarious than ever.

"The majority of football clubs want to get back to the holy grail that is the Premier League," he said. "With the increased revenues from the new TV deal, people are dying to get there, no matter how."

Powell, who was at Charlton for three years, said: "You do need that time, that small four-letter word that you'd love to have in football."

Powell said that managers were fully aware of the LMA's statistics when accepting a new job.

The former England left-back also warned that the figures were of such concern that drastic action may be necessary.

"I feel that there could come a time - and it's been mooted before - where there's going to be a sort of managers' transfer window."