MANAGERIAL MADNESS
By Leigh Sanders
This morning Peterborough United sacked manager Mark Cooper after only two months in charge. They are rock bottom in the Championship, six points off second-bottom Plymouth Argyle and eleven points off safety.
But how much of this is his fault? After all, he’s only been in charge for eight weeks, sixty-two days, a mere 1,488 hours.
They lost 2-0 at financially stricken Crystal Palace on Saturday, their sixteenth defeat of the season in only twenty-eight games. Cooper had won only one game in charge since taking over from Darren Ferguson (who was also sacked, incidentally, for a “lack of loyalty”). There had also been talk of dressing-room unrest this week.
But only six of the eighteen players in the squad on Saturday have been signed by Cooper, the rest were left over from the Ferguson regime. So is it Cooper’s tactics at fault? Or can he really be judged until he has the players he wants at his disposal?
Whatever the problem, it seems two months is an incredibly short time to judge a manager’s ability to turn your club’s fortunes around.
Just look at Queens Park Rangers. It seems now that they are on their 485th manager in a week, and despite the billions at the club’s disposal courtesy of Flavio Briatore and his Formula 1 chums, promotion still seems a million miles out of their reach.
But what do the stats say about swift managerial changes? Can they improve fortunes? Let’s have a little look.
In 2001/02 Colin Todd was appointed the new manager of Derby County as they nervously battled relegation from the Premier League. 98 days later, the board changed their minds. They were looking for something else.
John Gregory was given the job, but he was also unable to improve fortunes and Derby were relegated to what is now the Championship. They entered difficult financial times and sold many key players, eventually entering receivership and being sold for £3 in 2003.
And what about Brian Clough’s shock appointment at Leeds United in 1974? He hated the Leeds players, and vice versa, whose dirty tactics under previous manager Don Revie had constantly led to criticism from football purist Clough.
After fallings out with players and other staff he was given the boot after just 44 days. Not that it mattered to Old Big ‘Ead, he went on to win the European Cup twice with unfancied Nottingham Forest and stick two fingers up at the Elland Road hierarchy.
But what of Leeds? They saw short-term success. Former England captain Jimmy Armfield took an ageing team to the European Cup Final where they lost to German giants Bayern Munich.
But the cracks grew and grew and after dominating English football under Revie a string of former star players oversaw a slow decline down the table resulting in relegation to the second tier in 1982.
Swansea City have undergone a soap opera over the past twenty years and the giddy heights they currently experience, pushing for promotion to the Premiership, have not always been the case.
Constantly fighting financial trouble they held an unenviable record of six managers in eighteen months between 1995 and 1997. The shortest, however, was Kevin Cullis who lasted for seven days in 1996.
Cullis was instated by a consortium wishing to buy the club. They promised a “big name” yet gave the fans a man whose previous managerial experience consisted of controlling the youth team at non-league Midlands Club Cradley Town.
He lasted two games, his obvious lack of skill resulting in senior players Christian Edwards and Dave Penney ejecting him from the half-time team-talk during a 4-0 defeat to Blackpool and giving it themselves.
His replacement was Danish and Liverpool legend Jan Molby. They were relegated to the fourth tier at the end of the season but reached the Playoff final the next year, losing to Northampton Town. He was sacked the next season following a poor start and a succession of managers failed after him. Under John Hollins they again lost the Playoff Final to Scunthorpe United in 1999.
They were promoted the following year, but this was followed by relegation back to the fourth tier as crippling debts meant little room to bring in new players and the club was eventually sold for a mere £1 in July 2001.
So is jumping the gun the right solution? Look at Wenger at Arsenal and Darren Ferguson’s father Sir Alex at United. United almost sacked Ferguson after little success in his early years but look where they are now. His knighthood tells the whole story.
Managers need time to build, to bring their own ethic in. Wenger completely changed the attitude and lifestyle at Arsenal and they now play what is widely regarded as the most beautiful football in the world. Gone are the old chants of “Boring, boring Arsenal.”
So next time you start booing your manager after he fails to win in his first three games just give a thought to the likes of these two and the tales outlined above. Where do you want to be in five years time?
