Three Championship managers have lost their jobs already this season. And, if the stats are to be believed, there’s a lot more where that came from.
There are few leagues as unstable as English football’s second tier. A bipolar biosphere of sporting instability where the big kids are bullied by plucky newcomers and the shelf life of a manager gets shorter by the year.
According to a study by SkySports in June last year, the average life-span for a manager in the top five divisions of English football has dropped to a startling 1.23 years, with LMA chief executive Richard Bevan attributing the trend to the “increasingly more complex and volatile working environment” facing modern managers and the “short-termism” rife among owners, fans and board members across the land.
And, in a league comprising of fallen Goliaths and plucky Davids, there can be little surprise that the Championship is the most volatile of all, with the vast majority of sides within the division believing the play-offs could, or should, be within their grasp.
Just two months into the current campaign, Nigel Pearson (below) has been suspended by Derby, Kenny Jackett ousted at Wolves following their mega-money takeover and, on Monday morning, Roberto Di Matteo sacked by Aston Villa after just 124 days in charge.
And there’s one stat that sums up the erratic, pre-season prediction destroying league like no other; Villa’s next manager will be the thirteenth endured by former Leeds and Fulham striker Ross McCormack (below) since 2012.
Let’s hope, for his sake, that the next brave soul fares rather better than the likes of Neil Redfearn, Brian McDermott and Felix Magath.
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