Managers Need More Time

Vital Arsenal member Puregold writes about managers in the game, not directly an Arsenal issue but very interesting nevertheless.
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It is a fact that managers who have been given time will be more successful than those thrown in at the deep end hoping to swim. Wenger has been at Arsenal as long as Blair has been in Government and we all know who has been more successful ! I am of the old school that managers should be given time to gel a team rather than the one season or your out and down the job centre.

I recently read a report from a Dr BridgeWater. The study was from 1992 to 2005 and looked at teams from all 4 dvisions, 92 football league clubs.
Dr Bridgewater looked at the 678 managerial changes in the four football leagues from August 1992 to December 2005. Of these, 94 managers are still in post (ninety two league posts and two clubs which have been relegated out of the league), 48 resigned for personal, advancement or other reasons, but a staggering 536 of those managers were dismissed from their post. These changes of management have involved 360 different managers..

I was amazed at this figure, but then there is a trend growing. The managers that have been sacked show a lower than average time at the club and show a win percentage of 31% or lower. Those managers such as Wenger Ferguson even Benetez have a much higher percentage over 55% over all competitions and also have been at the club longer than the average.

The answer is to give a min of 2 years to turn things around, teams like totten*am who has had 9 managers since 1992 with an average time spent at the club of 1.4 years will not achieve success according to Dr Bridgewaters report, it is the team which a higher average of time spent seem improve over a sustained period of time with the same manager.

The teams with the fewest changes since 1992 would be Man United, Arsenal and Liverpool in the top ten, and look at the success of these teams, Chelsea buck that trend, with a higher amount of changes since 1992 (7) but only just as Maureen has been in his post over the average time and has the highest win percentage out of all managers with 73%.

We always talk about players not honouring contracts and if a contract is worth the paper it is written on, that the players have the power nowadays, where I feel it is the other way round. The clubs still hold the power, they sell a player when they want, the hire and fire a manager as they wish and they charge us fans what they want and stick 2 fingers up to the lot of us. WHY oh WHY.. because they know, unlike managers and players the one thing that never changes in football is its supporters. It is not like you are going to say ‘ sod this I can get a better ticket down at Fulham and they have more chance of winning something than my current team’

In my humble opinion if the clubs started to act and give the managers more time, the players too would give the manager and clubs more time and hence it would then spread down to the fans who would give the manager and board and players more time.

Time is what is needed to help build.

I only have one thought that totally goes against the grain on this and it would be on an ex england manager from sweden, he shouldn’t of been given the extended time in the first place, but thats another story !


Article submitted by Puregold.