Opinion: Under pressure, football managers in the modern game

In the modern game, the things that fans and owners want in a manager is experience at the level the club is at and to not lose a lot of games, and also a trophy or two may help win them over. However, if a manager arrives and fails to make an instant impact some fans may call for the manager to be sacked within a season if they hit a bad run of form. A good example of this is Thomas Tuchel when he was the Chelsea head coach, after winning Chelsea's first Champions League since 2012, as well as a UEFA Super Cup and a Club World Cup at his time with the club, he was sacked in September 2022 with Chelsea sat 6th in the Premier League. Some sackings are more obvious, such as Paul Heckingbottom from Sheffield United this season and his team's bad run of results leading to them being 20th in the league at the time of writing this, 7 points into the relegation zone. Statistically, managers in top flights across Europe last only 16 months before being sacked or leaving on their own accord. The question is, how easy is it for a manager to keep their role?

One of the most important things for a manger to be able to do is obviously to win games, sounds easy but it really isn't. Football is constantly changing in the modern era of the game and managers have to be prepared to change their tactics and personnel quickly and efficiently should they need to. A team that may win a game against Man United may not be a team that can win against West Ham etc. A constantly changing team also keeps opposition manager guessing about what to do in the game, but when teams are switched constantly it removes team synergy and could mean that players don't know their roles or how their teammates play around them. Finding a balance that works is crucial for a manager for good results, but with increased scouting around teams and playstyles, how can managers be prepared for every possibility whilst also being studied constantly. If a team's tactics get found out and results start turning negative, a manager needs an effective backup otherwise the fans will quickly turn on them, which leads me to my next point quite nicely.

No matter how well a manager can do, the fans also play a bigger role than they may think in changes to management. I don't just mean the fans on X who fill your timeline wanting their team's manager to be sacked after 3 or 4 losses or maybe a couple of poor performances. I'm also talking about the fans who protest outside of the stadiums who want change, or how the fans sing about the manager during or after the games. Whilst some of these situations fans can overreact to their clubs situations, these actions are quickly noticed by owners and directors at the club. This puts more pressure on a manager and makes the job of the manager and the players much harder, as they have lost the extra power that fans carry with their support. Although, sometimes the fans going against the manager is fair and even justified. The example I will use here is Dean Smith at Norwich, who openly criticised the Norwich fans and said that they had been waiting for a bad run to create a narrative against him. One of the key things as a manager of any football club is to keep the fans happy, and not to put the blame onto fans for a bad run like Smith did. As you can imagine, Smith was sacked shortly after he made those comments. Losing the fans also has a knock-on effect to the players, who may also lose confidence due to the fans they play for being disrespected by the manager.

So with all of this being said, are managers given enough time to be able to succeed at a new club? In my opinion, most of them aren't. Obviously every club is different with different goals and different expectations for managers and what is seen as a success, whether financially or in terms of league position. However, I think managers are treated unfairly, some aren't even given a full season before being on the chopping block. Others are even sacked when they are doing a half decent job, look at Steve Cooper at Nottingham Forest, who kept them in the Premier League last season and gets sacked this season after a bad run of games. It is never enjoyable to see your team lose for long periods of time, I'm a Norwich City fan who has seen his team in the Premier League, I know the feeling first hand but blame cannot always be blamed on solely the manager. The players are the ones who aren't playing well, there could also be issues behind the scenes that don't involve the manager, so many things could be going wrong but the manager may still be the one who people blame. There are a few select cases where sacking a manager early makes sense, but those are quite rare. Both boards and fans should treat their manager with more respect and get behind them in tough times, as that support in the tough times may make the good times even better.