The Importance of Planning the Next Manager

For most people with an interest in football and the Premiership, the relegation battle is great entertainment. With one unexpected result, a team can seemingly lift themselves to safety whereas a poor run of form can take you from mid-table security to fighting for your life.
As many as nine clubs can feasibly get relegated this season and the occupant of 18th place seems to change every week. The only people not enjoying this situation are the people affiliated with the involved clubs; especially the managers and the owners. With the threat of relegation looming, panic sets in and the people with the power feel the need to make a change. A change of managers is now commonplace in football, but doing it well and doing it badly can often be the difference between success and failure.
Take Brian McDermott at Reading, with relegation looming more and more as the team struggled to get out of the bottom three, the owner Anton Zingarevich decided to sack him. There were no particular problems in the dressing room, squad unity seemed high and the players were fully behind their boss. However the threat of relegation was too much and Zingarevich looked to have taken a leaf out of another Russian owner’s book; sack the manager. Similarly to Roman Abramovich, there was no successor lined up to take the job. McDermott wasn’t sacked because they believed there was a better candidate, it was the only action that the owner could take to change the fortunes of the team.
As I was keen to stress in an earlier article, the introduction of the transfer window has had an adverse effect on the tenure of managers. With there being times of the season where you cannot sign a new player, a change of manager is the only real option available to alter a poor run of form. I strongly believe that if there was no transfer window in place, Reading would be looking to sign more players rather take the action that they did.
However while this may be the case, there is no excuse for not having another manager lined up to take the job. With only a handful of games to go until the end of the season you are left with no margin for error; having the coaches run training sessions with no idea of a managers tactics or preferred playing style does not benefit for the team at all. With fifteen days between the sacking of a manager and the hiring of a replacement, Reading did themselves no favours at all. They also suffered from not having a high profile, successful manager available. If they had prepared properly, they could have approached many managers and asked if they were interested in the job, while McDermott was still their manager.
By doing this, they would have discovered that there are few options available, or they would have realised that there are no better managers available and thus the best option is to stick with the current man. By not doing this, they were left without a manager and without a possible replacement. Thus, they made what could be described as a ‘sideways’ appointment in Nigel Adkins; a manager with no greater credentials than McDermott and viewed as at an equal level. Without preparing for the departure of their manager, Reading were forced to wait for a successor; who turned out to be no better than the man he was replacing!
Ironically if you want an example of how a change of manager is executed properly, you have to look at Adkins’ sacking at Southampton. He was sacked and replaced by Mauricio Pochettino on the same day; the club had clearly done their work on identifying a replacement and having him ready to take over as soon as he was needed. The result? Well despite the great amount of criticism that came Southampton’s way for replacing the man who brought them successive promotions with someone who couldn’t even speak English, their fortunes have improved.
When Adkins was sacked, Southampton sat 15^th in the table; they’re now 11^th. This is what happens when you properly identify a replacement, take time to pick the right person and execute the change of managers quickly; your fortunes improve. If you sack a manager without any idea of a replacement, you waste time and pick a candidate that isn’t an improvement. I see it as no coincidence that Southampton look like surviving while Reading appear doomed to relegation.
If only Reading had looked at another club in recent memory that had sacked a successful and popular manager in the latter stages of the season without any plan for a replacement. In February last year, Wolverhampton Wanderers sacked Mick McCarthy. Without another manager to come in and take over, they promoted the assistant coach eleven days later. The result? Instability and a general failure; they were relegated and currently sit 20^th in the Championship, facing the great possibility of back-to-back relegations.
Why is it that we’re seeing these managerial changes more and more? We have had the transfer window for over a decade now, but the sacking of managers is at an all-time high. The other factor seems to be money. With the Premiership getting greater and greater TV deals, staying in the league and avoiding relegation is becoming a matter of tens of millions of pounds; while relegation brings parachute payments they don’t measure up to the cash received for staying in the league. The possibility of losing this money could send the owners into a panic and force them into making the decisions that have been made recently. Love it or hate it, it’s likely that this policy is here to stay.
This article wasn’t intended to criticise clubs for changing managers this late in the season, my intention is to point out that some clubs don’t plan a replacement when they sack their managers; Reading and Wolves being the best recent examples. When this happens, the result on the team is a negative one; worse performances and thus relegation occurs. However when the change is planned properly, when the next manager is well scouted and sufficient thought has been given to who he will be, the club can benefit and can be lifted away from danger. Southampton certainly look better off with Pochettino than they did with Adkins. As unethical and harsh as it may sound, decide upon your new manager before sacking the current one.
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