Warnock the latest victim in Premier League revolving door
Football is a tough business and managers are always first in the
line of fire when results are not going the way fans, the board or the owners
expect. However, the sacking of Neil Warnock is yet another classic example of
owners lacking both patience and perspective, threatening to destabilise a club
which had adjusted relatively well to the demands of Premier League football.
Whilst an 8-match winless run is enough to put any manager under
intense pressure, perhaps it is events at Sunderland which have caught the eye
of chairman Tony Fernandes, where within a month of taking charge Martin
O’Neill has turned around the fortunes of a club which was languishing towards
the foot of the table. 13 points from a possible 18 has resurrected
Sunderland’s season that was threatening to become a fierce struggle against
relegation and clearly there are hopes that a new manager may have the same
effect at Loftus Road.
The problem is that there are not too many managers of the calibre
of Martin O’Neill with his Premier League experience and a proven record at
improving teams, and one could argue Sunderland were in a slightly false
position given the quality of their squad. Indeed the speed of the turnaround
may say just as much about Steve Bruce’s management as Martin O’Neill’s. Mark
Hughes is expected to take over at QPR, but is he really a big enough improvement on
Neil Warnock to justify such action?
Statistics do not settle the debate either. On the one hand,
Premier League statistics from 2005-11 show that new managers earn around three
more points and improve a club’s league position by one place on average in
their first 10 leagues games in charge compared with their predecessors final
10 matches. Come the end of the season, those three points could be crucial.
However, as the League Managers Association so frequently points out whenever a
manager’s tenure is cut short, this focus on short-term gains rarely lead to
long-term success and stability.
More tellingly, last season the Premier League was the only one of
the top five European leagues and lower English leagues where on average
managers were sacked despite improving their clubs’ position. Too many managers
are sacked when they are doing a relatively good job or have the capability of
turning round a difficult spell. Such are the fiscal pressures and chronic
short-termist outlook of modern football; this has become a recurring feature
of the past few seasons.
Given time, could Martin Jol have turned Tottenham into the force
they currently are without the need for the catastrophic tenure of Juande
Ramos. Would Blackburn be in the situation they currently find themselves if
Blackburn’s new owners gave Sam Allardyce a fair chance? Who is to say that
Chris Hughton could not have taken Newcastle into the top 7 after it was he who
settled a club that was veering from one crisis to the next? Warnock is another
audition to this roll call of poorly treated managers.
QPR have in fact adjusted relatively well to life in the Premier
League. The club sat 9th in mid-November, and are only a few wins
from returning to mid-table comfort. Some of Warnock’s summer signings
(Bothroyd, Wright-Phillips, DJ Campbell) have flattered to deceive, but as he
has often pointed out, was not able to sign the players he had pinpointed due
to the club’s ownership situation in the summer. QPR are certainly not
favourites for the drop, with Wigan, Blackburn, Bolton and Wolves with as many
problems, and perhaps even Norwich or Swansea could slump into trouble if their
bubbles burst in a similar way to Blackpool or Hull in recent seasons.
Warnock had turned round a club that was languishing in 20th
place in the Championship when he arrived and enjoyed astonishing success in
returning them to the Premier League after a lengthy absence, all on a
shoestring budget. There was little, if no dissent from the terraces. Many fans
are angry at the decision to dispense with his services. For all his ability to
rile opposition players and fans or the authorities, he displayed remarkable
diplomatic skills to get the best out of the mercurial Adel Taraabt and even
Joey Barton was showing increased levels of calm. At the very least he deserved
the whole season to keep QPR in the Premier League. On a personal level he also had a fair amount of
unfinished business and a point to prove after relegation with Sheffield United
in acrimonious circumstances surrounding Carlos Tevez.
Yet in the haste to establish QPR as a Premier League team and
presumably raise its profile in Asia, Tony Fernandes has taken a risky and
harsh decision. The chairman has admitted he will be culpable if the new
manager cannot keep QPR in the Premier League. But Neil Warnock is now just
another statistic in the annals of Premier League history and the tendency to
unceremoniously dump a manager as a solution to any prolonged dip in form.