A warm welcome back this weekend to the Premier League, which before the international break had just got round to parting with its first couple of managers.
Dick Advocaat, who if he really did not fancy a relegation scrap had no business signing up for a season at Sunderland, was perhaps a special case. He left of his own accord, before his club’s entrenched problems could get any worse, and not many Premier League managers are willing to admit to their own limitations quite as readily. Advocaat’s attitude cannot be described as admirable, though at least it was honest. Most managers have no choice but to accept the possibility of relegation as part of the bargain.
Over on Merseyside, where Brendan Rodgers’ tenure came to an end quietly to allow the fully-orchestrated Jürgen Klopp production to be wheeled into place just days later, a theory was emerging that Goodison Park has become a graveyard for high-profile managers. Even before the 1-1 draw with Liverpool journalists were noting that the last fixtures of Carlo Ancelotti and David Moyes’s Premier League careers had been played out away at Everton, and suggesting Rodgers may be the man to supply the hat-trick.
They were not entirely incorrect either, though this notion of Everton becoming death personified, as if Louis van Gaal may look over his shoulder at some point in Saturday’s fixture and find the Grim Reaper in close attendance, needs to be checked at once. Everton are not the new West Bromwich Albion, a relatively minor side with a record of claiming managerial scalps.
Look closely at the three Goodison casualties and immediately it becomes obvious they were all different. Ancelotti was allegedly sacked in the tunnel within minutes of the final whistle at Everton in 2011, following a 1-0 defeat. That sounds impossibly dramatic, as if Roman Abramovich and his henchmen could hardly wait, yet the prosaic truth was that it was the final game of the season and a dead rubber at that.
Chelsea had more or less missed their chance to deny Manchester United a record 19th title with a 2-1 defeat at Old Trafford a fortnight earlier. United had been confirmed as champions a week before the Everton game, with a 1-1 draw at Blackburn while the rest of the country was watching the FA Cup final. Chelsea did not sack their manager on either of those occasions, they merely waited until the season was complete then told Ancelotti his services would no longer be required. There seems little possibility that a thumping win at Goodison on the last day would have earned him a reprieve, and had Chelsea completed their fixtures somewhere else – Wigan, or Blackpool or Newcastle, say – the manager’s fate would have been exactly the same.
Moyes seems a more fitting candidate for the kiss of death, particularly as Death photo-bombed him at Goodison, and it is possible that had he won the match in April 2014 he might have stayed a short while longer. But the former Everton manager’s number was up by that stage of the season and it seemed everyone knew it. Light aeroplanes had buzzed Old Trafford, Liverpool and Manchester City had just posted 3-0 victories at the same venue, the United hierarchy knew a line would have to be drawn under the painful chapter and the only question was when and where, if that is not two questions. By losing at Goodison it became mathematically impossible for United to compete in Europe the following season, so Moyes was judged a failure and consigned to history, even though United were in seventh place at the time.
Liverpool were a few places below that when Rodgers made the short journey across Stanley Park earlier this month. Given the manager is widely understood to have known, or at least had a strong sense of foreboding, that this was going to be his last match in charge it is interesting to speculate on what might have happened had Liverpool won by four or five goals. Nothing, in all probability. Rodgers’ fate had been sealed by limp performances at home to West Ham and away to Manchester United. The decidedly unimpressive Europa League draw at home to FC Sion had not helped either.
Many still think Liverpool’s owners were generous in allowing Rodgers to even start the season after the manner in which the previous one had ended at Stoke. When it became evident that not enough had changed quickly enough, the show had to be brought to a close. The only significance the Merseyside derby had on proceedings was that Everton away was the fixture that preceded the international break.
So while there might be something just slightly spooky about Everton continually finding themselves in the news in this manner, it is probably only a freak of the fixture computer. None of the above three managers were in any danger of relegation, and fear of relegation is the reason why the vast majority are sacked. To be a graveyard club in the classic sense you have to be a relegation candidate, a smaller side capable of punching above your weight to produce results that make owners and chief executives of beaten teams conclude that something needs to be done.
Wolverhampton Wanders 1 West Bromwich Albion 5 was a perfect example in a Black Country derby in February 2012, and afterwards, unsurprisingly, Mick McCarthy was asked to clear his desk. West Brom accounted for Chelsea’s André Villas-Boas a month later, and as their list of victims includes Roberto Di Matteo, Roberto Mancini (arguably, he was still in place for the FA Cup final a few days later and City actually managed to beat West Brom 1-0), Chris Hughton and Paolo Di Canio they can be viewed as the archetypal manager trap, a club to whom it is dangerous to lose.
Chelsea evidently made the right decision in removing AVB, for under Di Matteo they went on to win the FA Cup and Champions League, yet what is most noticeable about the list of managers West Brom toppled is how few went on to do anything of note in the Premier League.
Now West Brom have got themselves a manager who has done noteworthy things in the Premier League they have probably lost their ability to cause upheaval in opponents they have surprised, even if Tony Pulis is finding it difficult to drag his latest club towards mid-table. A Pulis team will normally be well organised and difficult to beat; there is no particular disgrace in losing to one so there should be no need for kneejerk reactions in the boardroom.
Exactly the same could be said of a Sam Allardyce team, at least when the manager has been there long enough to impose his defensive disciplines on the side. So there is quite a lot at stake when West Brom host Sunderland on Saturday. Relegation stalks both clubs. To judge by Advocaat’s parting remarks Sunderland are not good enough to stay up, though Allardyce must think otherwise and he has an excellent record of keeping clubs afloat. He doesn’t know at this stage whether his input will be enough, just as Pulis cannot be sure he can lift West Brom as he lifted Crystal Palace and Stoke. Allardyce spoke for most managers in the league when he described himself as being “in the risk business”.
There are some potentially dramatic fixtures on offer this weekend, even more so than is usual in the Premier League. Can Klopp’s Liverpool emulate Rodgers’ tremendous record at Tottenham for example? Will Roberto Martínez be able to supervise a fourth successive Everton league win over Manchester United at Goodison? Newcastle v Norwich is now a must-win game for Steve McClaren, Swansea and Stoke is a meeting of two teams who thought they might have been doing better, Palace v West Ham brings together two early-season high-fliers while Chelsea v Aston Villa unexpectedly resembles a relegation dogfight.
Yet West Brom v Sunderland could be the most interesting of the lot, even if it is a little early to expect Allardyce to work miracles. Not from a football point of view, most probably, but there are two big managerial reputations going head to head at the Hawthorns, two time-served Premier League firefighters with clubs to sort out.
Klopp will undoubtedly get all the headlines, because the Premier League is always fascinated with anything new. We should not be dismissive of the old hands, however, or forget that whatever is happening at the glamour end of the Premier League relegation is the real curse haunting most managers. There are huge challenges going on at the bottom of the table as well as the top.
Or, in the case of Tottenham v Liverpool, in the middle.
