Consistency in a football world gone mad

It was hard to argue against the logic.

Time after time when questioned about the security of his position as Manchester City manager in recent months, Roberto Mancini gave the stock reply: If finishing second in the league was a sackable offence then the 18 managers who finished below him should also get their P45s.

Late on Monday night though, the Italian learned there’s two types of logic: actual logic and football logic. A year to the day since Sergio Aguero’s title-winning goal, his time was up. He, like Roberto Di Matteo, learned that substantial achievement in one season is no guarantee of job security the next. Patience, rarely plentiful at the best of times, is now utterly nonexistent.

The stats are startling. With Alex Ferguson calling time on his 26-year reign at Old Trafford and David Moyes ending his 11-year spell at Everton to replace him at the end of the season Arsene Wenger will be left as, by a decade, the longest serving manager in the Premier League. Tony Pulis, who like Wenger has come under pressure from his own fans this season, is next having held the helm at Stoke for seven years, five of which have been in the Premier League. Roberto Martinez is third and the expectation is his four-year reign at relegated Wigan will end this summer.

Only three other current Premier League managers: Newcastle’s Alan Pardew, Fulham’s Martin Jol and West Ham’s Sam Allardyce have been in their respective jobs for over a year although Malky Mackay, who led Cardiff to promotion this season and has been in charge for two seasons, will make that a quartet next season.

Six current Premier League managers will celebrate a year in the job next month and given the current trend it seems unlikely that the sextet of Brendan Rodgers (Liverpool), Paul Lambert (Aston Villa), Chris Hughton (Norwich), Michael Laudrup (Swansea), Andre Villas-Boas (Tottenham) and Steve Clarke (West Brom) will all still be in situ in two years or even 12 months time.

Villas-Boas, for instance, could finish the season in fifth, a place lower than Harry Redknapp, who was subsequently sacked, 12 months ago. Liverpool, under Rodgers, have toiled in the Premier League in a similar fashion to last season when Kenny Dalglish was dismissed despite reaching two cup finals and winning one. Both Villas-Boas and Rodgers could start next season under significant pressure.

Manchester United’s decision to hand David Moyes a six-year contract struck a blow against the sort of short-termism currently in vogue. Gary Neville referred to it as “a victory for sanity in football”. However Moyes will know that a piece of paper — while it may aid his wallet — will offer little protection to his job security if he fails to win a trophy within his first two seasons at Old Trafford.

Mancini’s sacking, Ferguson’s retirement and Rafael Benitez’s inevitable departure from Chelsea means that this season’s top three will be under new management at the start of next season. It seems Manchester City and Chelsea’s definition of a long-term manager is of someone who lasts two years and their definition of success is a Premier League or a Champions League crown or preferably both every season.

Not that the nuclear option is limited to the top tier. Clubs at the other end of the table have proven themselves equally trigger-happy this season. The results have been mixed. QPR, Southampton, Reading and Sunderland have all changed managers this year. The task of saving QPR proved beyond Harry Redknapp. Harshly sacked by Southampton, Nigel Adkins was unable to save Reading after the Royals parted company with Brian McDermott. Adkins’ replacement at Southampton, Mauricio Pochettino, helped the Saints to safety although it could be argued Adkins had turned a corner prior to his axing. Sunderland are safe, though the jury is still out on Paulo Di Canio.

Oddly, those appointments, with the exception of Redknapp and Pochettino, came after the transfer window closed and meant the new manager had to navigate a route to survival without having a chance to sign new players to reshape the team.

It seems an illogical approach but as Mancini discovered on Monday, logic and football rarely go together.