Each week, Ste Tudor will cast his expert eye over the current state of the Premier League sack race - who will be the next manager to leave their position or be sacked in 2025/26?
In 2023, a detailed and depressing report by UEFA revealed that the average tenure of a manager across Europe’s top five leagues amounted to just 15 months.
That same year, there were 735 sackings in Europe’s top-flight divisions with the Premier League alone seeing 15 changes of head coach. That lofty figure focuses only on permanent switches, not the appointment of interim bosses, or managers resigning.
Incidentally, what an ironic word to use ‘permanent’ is. Just two years on, none of those 15 appointments are still in their roles.
When assessing the current roster of Premier League gaffers we find that 65% were appointed in 2024 or thereafter while three managers – Nuno Espirito Santo, Graham Potter and Ange Postecoglou - have already received their P45 a mere eight games in.
Is it any wonder therefore that football management is sometimes referred to as the most precarious job around? A lion tamer wearing Lady Gaga’s meat dress has better prospects, and more security.
What’s more, it only gets worse for the present crop because the sacking season is just around the corner, that time of the year when club chairmen collectively press the panic button in the blind hope that it doubles up as a reset.
Across the last 12 seasons, 89 Premier League managers have either been sacked or left via ‘mutual consent’ during the course of a campaign. A notable 51.6% of them had their desks cleared between mid-November and the end of February.
There are two ways of viewing this, neither of them right nor wrong, both subjective.
Should we put sentiment to one side, and the sobering acknowledgment that a man has temporarily lost his livelihood, we could perhaps admit there is some degree of logic to over half of top-flight sackings occurring in this period.
Because, even if employed that summer, a coach has had a transfer window, pre-season, numerous games and three international breaks to implement his methods and mould a team. If results are subsequently going from bad to worse it heavily suggests he is not the right fit for that club.
Alternatively, it could be opined that club owners these days are far too guilty of short-term thinking and that it typically takes a substantial amount of time to turn a team’s fortunes around.
After all, managers are very rarely appointed into a successful gig, complete with a happy changing room and players firing on every cylinder. They get the job in the first place because a team has fundamental issues that need to be addressed as priority before a new direction can be taken.
Regardless, this is the reality in which we now reside in, and furthermore there is another truth that must be recognized.
It is that a domino effect tends to occur. When one goes, another follows soon after.
With sackings taking place especially early this season that doesn’t bode well for those currently in the spotlight, their jobs very much on the line.
Premier League Manager Betting Odds:
- Vitor Pereira - 1/2
- Arne Slot - 8/1
- Nuno Espirito Santo - 8/1
- Bar - 10/1
What a difference a few good results make.
At the start of October, Rubem Amorim was firmly among the favourites in the football betting to be the next Premier League manager sacked, an event that felt almost inevitable as his problems at Old Trafford extended into a second season.
As defeats and poor performances once again racked up, the media scrutiny intensified, while influential former players regularly chimed in with their prophesying of imminent doom.
Add supporter unrest and the Manchester United hierarchy offering up the dreaded ‘vote of confidence’ and we all know how this typically plays out. By common consensus, Amorim was a dead man walking.
Yet a comfortable home win over Sunderland slightly eased the pressure and when this was followed by a rare and important victory at Anfield the chatter promptly quietened to a whisper.
A subsequent 4-2 bettering of Brighton over the weekend means the Portuguese coach has now drifted out to distant odds in the sack race betting. It is the first time the Reds have managed three consecutive league wins under Amorim’s charge and the first time as a club since February 2024.
So the 40-year-old is safe, for the time being at least, his name now residing alongside Scott Parker and Oliver Glasner in the betting, while Marco Silva too is a near neighbour. These managers are in no realistic danger of being summoned to the chairman’s office ahead of the next international break. They have the luxury of committing to their work in peace.
Can be same be said of Arne Slot, the latest big fish to find himself swimming in perilous waters?
Having guided Liverpool to a league title in his first year in charge the Dutchman held hero status on Merseyside going into 2025/26 and frankly it would have been sheer folly to question his job security, either over the summer or a handful of games in. By late September the Reds boasted a 100% record in the league and sat imperiously at its summit.
Yet, one of the most dramatic and sudden slumps witnessed in modern times has brought about a dramatic and sudden revision of everything we all believed to be true, with four consecutive losses in the league – compounded by a Champions League defeat in Turkey – placing Slot, against all expectation, in the frame.
Suddenly, his summer spending splurge is being seriously questioned, a decision to overhaul a successful, well-oiled machine that has left Liverpool ill-balanced and with fundamental issues throughout the side.
Their defence has become porous. Their new full-backs are struggling to replicate the duties fulfilled by their old full-backs. Florian Wirtz meanwhile is looking lost, his impact minimal, his £116m fee a heavy weight to bear.
Factor in too an additional £307m spent over the summer and a recent plummet to seventh in the table and naturally there is now talk of Slot’s story-arc heading for a shocking plot twist.
Some context though is surely warranted here. Slot’s success last term affords him an awful lot of grace, within the club and among the Anfield faithful, and he has earned the right to be given sufficient time to try and address the many concerns that have arisen of late. To turn the team’s fortunes back around.
Will Arne Slot therefore be the next Premier League manager sacked? That is highly doubtful. Will he still be at the reins come next August? That remains to be seen.
Does this same line of thinking also apply to Vitor Pereira, the manager who is presently odds-on in the sports betting to depart next from our dug-outs? It categorically does not.
With Wolves winless in their opening eight fixtures, all eyes turned to Molineux this weekend for a critical ‘six-pointer’ clash with fellow strugglers Burnley. Even Pereira admitted himself beforehand that his position would be all-but-untenable if his team lost to the Clarets, leaving them further rooted to the foot of the table.
Burnley left the Midlands with all three points, courtesy of a 95th minute winner.
The fall-out from this result has unsurprisingly been fierce, with fans animated in their displeasure, to the point of protesting outside the ground and making their feelings known in-game. An unsavoury incident after the final whistle meanwhile saw Periera confront supporters who were chanting for him to be dismissed.
Despite the club insisting today that they have no intention of replacing the Portuguese coach what increasingly harms his cause is the sacking of Brendan Rodgers at Celtic.
It gives the fans a name to chant for now. A man to demand.
Failing that, they could simply wait a while and welcome back into the fold their most popular manager in the modern era.
Nuno Espirito Santo has already got the boot once this term, but if that was primarily for non-footballing reasons – his relationship with Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis disintegrating to acrimony – his terrible returns at West Ham to date could result in a second dismissal in record time.
Since replacing Graham Potter at the London Stadium, Santo has been heavily criticised for his divisive team selections, not to mention underwhelming fare that has gained the Hammer just a single point in four games.
They have scored just twice in that period, conceding 1.7 goals per 90.
Moreover, the fan-base have made it abundantly clear that he was not their appointment of choice to begin with, these early losses only strengthening their annoyance.
In normal seasons, in normal circumstances, it would feel bizarre to give too much credence to the idea that an incoming manager could be on the verge of getting sacked. Santo has barely had time to unpack his knick-knacks for his new desk.
This though is not a normal season under any circumstances.
What Is The Premier League Sack Race?
In 2023, a detailed and depressing report by UEFA revealed that the average tenure of a manager across Europe’s top five leagues amounted to just 15 months.
That same year, there were 735 sackings in Europe’s top-flight divisions with the Premier League alone seeing 15 changes of head coach. That lofty figure focuses only on permanent switches, not the appointment of interim bosses, or managers resigning.
Incidentally, what an ironic word to use ‘permanent’ is. Just two years on, none of those 15 appointments are still in their roles.
When assessing the current roster of Premier League gaffers we find that 65% were appointed in 2024 or thereafter while two managers – Nuno Espirito Santo and Graham Potter - have already received their P45 a mere seven games in.
Is it any wonder therefore that football management is sometimes referred to as the most precarious job around?
A lion tamer wearing Lady Gaga’s meat dress has better prospects, and more security.
What’s more, it only gets worse for the present crop because the sacking season is just around the corner, that time of the year when club chairmen collectively press the panic button in the blind hope that it doubles up as a reset.
How Many Premier League Managers Are Sacked?
Across the last 12 seasons, 89 Premier League managers have either been sacked or left via ‘mutual consent’ during the course of a campaign. A notable 51.6% of them had their desks cleared between mid-November and the end of February.
There are two ways of viewing this, neither of them right nor wrong, both subjective.
Should we put sentiment to one side, and the sobering acknowledgment that a man has temporarily lost his livelihood, we could perhaps admit there is some degree of logic to over half of top-flight sackings occurring in this period.
Because, even if employed that summer, a coach has had a transfer window, pre-season, numerous games and three international breaks to implement his methods and mould a team. If results are subsequently going from bad to worse it heavily suggests he is not the right fit for that club.
Alternatively, it could be opined that club owners these days are far too guilty of short-term thinking and that it typically takes a substantial amount of time to turn a team’s fortunes around.
After all, managers are very rarely appointed into a successful gig, complete with a happy changing room and players firing on every cylinder. They get the job in the first place because a team has fundamental issues that need to be addressed as priority before a new direction can be taken.
Regardless, this is the reality in which we now reside in, and furthermore there is another truth that must be recognized.
It is that a domino effect tends to occur. When one goes, another follows soon after.
With sackings taking place especially early this season that doesn’t bode well for those currently in the spotlight, their jobs very much on the line.
*Odds subject to change - prices accurate at the time of writing*
