The Managerial Merry Go-Round Begins

With the Premier League and La Liga seasons only finishing 2 days ago it seems as if club chairman aren’t hanging around in entering the sack race and showing their managers the exit door. Sam Allardyce has been shown the door at West Ham United after his contract wasn’t renewed while Carlo Ancelotti has been given the shove at Real Madrid after failure to win a trophy this season at The Bernabeu.

It’s not just the top levels of English and Spanish Football that have seen managerial departures. Derby have sacked Steve McClaren with there being no doubt that his failure to get Derby into playoffs being the main cause for his sacking, but the powers above will also point to Derby’s terrible end of season form and Steve McClaren’s failure to really declare his intentions as to whether he was staying in Derby or departing to Newcastle to try and steady their ship with 3 games to go. Sheffield United have lost patience with Nigel Clough whose solid showings in the cups this season was not enough to save his job after not managing to get promoted through the play offs.

In Spain another departure is Eibar manager Gaizka Gaitano who resigned after their relegation to the Segunda Liga, Eibar’s season completely dropped off a cliff in the second half of the season as they especially missed the departure of Raul Albentosa to Derby. Gaitano resgined citing the fact that he “had lost his authority” with the club being relegated, although there could be a final twist in the tale as Elche could be relegated for financial issues which would in turn save Eibar, whether this would be enough to then get Gaitano to return to the helm remains to be seen.

So the questions now have to be asked as to who is going to end up where? – Real Madrid look set to talk to Rafael Benitez in the next week to replace Carlo Ancelotti, the rate in which they burn through managers they isn’t really anyone else they could realistically talk to with the only other plausible option being Zinedine Zidane being promoted from the Castilla team but I think that has come around a bit too early. As for West Ham they have been linked with all kinds of names including Ancelotti and Jurgen Klopp but both have them said they need a proper sabbatical for at least 6 months so they won’t be ready to take over for August but being realistic would they ever have interest in the West Ham the more realistic appointment will most probably be Slaven Bilic who announced his departure from Turkish side Fenerbahce on  Sunday.

At Newcastle the big question will be whether John Carver is given the job full time, now you can’t fault the passion the man shows but unfortunately as has shown with their awful run at the end of the season passion isn’t going to be enough to win the necessary amount of football matches in a season and therefore I don’t think Carver is going to be the man trusted with the full time reigns at St. James Park. After that rare interview from Mike Ashley on Sunday I think the penny has finally dropped and he knows he has to start backing a manager by being active in the transfer market and not just selling the best players for a profit and repeating the cycle ad infinitum. The main reason that won’t work next season is because they don’t really have any more stars to shift on, the cloth has been cut as much as it can and if they don’t spend in the summer then next season’s misery could be even worse. As for who will take over then Steve McClaren could become a favourite for the simple fact that Mike Ashley won’t have to pay any competition to get him in, but will that be the right appointment to placate the fans on Tyneside remains to be seen.

Sheffield United have been linked with Gustavo Poyet, Nigel Adkins and Darren Ferguson as they look to replace Nigel Clough but departing Brentford Manager Mark Warburton has already declared himself out of the running. Out of them I would go with Adkins or Ferguson, I had a Brighton season ticket under Gus Poyet’s reign and sometimes it wasn’t easy to watch and I’m sure Sunderland fans would agree.

So with the sack race well and truly started I’m sure these won’t be the only managerial vacancies to come open this Summer and whatever happens you can follow it here. Who will be next to jump on board the managerial merry go round?