Being a football manager is a cut-throat business, as so many will undoubtedly face the chop from the top even if they have not necessarily been performing of a sub-standard. It is, however a popular betting market for those that like to predict the sack race and punters can find the best odds by using online-betting.org/it.
It would not have been unfair to suggest Ralph Hasenhuttl could have been out of work earlier this season after Southampton took a 9-0 thumping from Leicester City in front of their own fans back in October 2019.
However, as we all know, the Saints actually decided to stick by the Austrian and did not make the knee-jerk decision to fire him; something many other clubs within the Premier League may not have thought twice about and pulled the trigger as soon as the final whistle went.
Indeed, Southampton were rewarded positively for their decision to keep him in the dugout, as they went unbeaten in 10 of their following 19 games before COVID-19 reared its ugly head and climbed up the table and started to pull away from the bottom three.
The positives did not end there, though, with Hasenhuttl recently signing a contract extension for a further four years, showing that there is reward for sticking by a manager when things do not always go to plan.
Here, though, are some managers that could have done more for their club if they were awarded a little more patience as Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool shows it can work wonders better than anyone else…
#1. Carlo Ancelotti – Chelsea
Carlo Ancelotti may have got his return to English football this season with Everton, however he may have been able to leave the Premier League a lot later than he did if Chelsea were a little more patient with their decisions.
Roman Abramovich and the Blues may have brewed a sacking culture at Stamford Bridge (careful, Frank Lampard), but sacking the Italian when they did did not appear to make too much sense. Ancelotti, who in fact has already been sacked at Goodison Park, was told by Chelsea within an hour after his second season in west London ended that he was no longer needed because he did not win a trophy. Despite finishing runners-up in the Premier League in 2010/11 after winning the double the year before, the fact that still was not enough to save him his job did not sit well with many.
#2 Javi Gracia – Watford
Bizarrely, Watford decided to sack Javi Gracia just a couple of weeks into the 2019/20 Premier League campaign and replaced him with Quique Sanchez Flores, who himself had been sacked three years prior and would go on to be fired once again just a few months down the line.
Gracia’s dismissal was a weird one when you consider that the Hornets had just featured in an FA Cup final a few months before, although their defence leaked goals against Manchester City during their trip to Wembley. Apparently, it was his reluctance to use his new signings and the ability to fix the defence that caused him to leave prematurely, but a couple of weeks into a new season after an impressive one seems a little to drastic. Then again, when the Pozzo family involved, drastic is not a word in their vocabulary.
#3 – Slavisa Jokanovic – Fulham
Having spent north of £100million on new talent following promotion to the Premier League, the pressure would have firmly been on Slavisa Jokanovic to get results and keep Fulham in the top-flight. However, just a few months into the campaign, he was sacked and immediately replaced by Premier League champion Claudio Ranieri, a man who was also sacked just months into his tenure.
Given Jokanovic had guided Fulham into the Premier League after winning in their play-offs after beating Aston Villa, many would have felt he deserved more time to try and turn things around and get those expensive signings all working together. Nonetheless, with the way things went for the Cottagers, perhaps whoever was in charge was doomed from the start anyway.
