Who'd be a manager?

The myth of managers being judged on results.

In this post I want to argue that managers are judged on results far less than we are led to believe.

Plenty of managers have lost their jobs for non-footballing reasons. Kenny Dalglish at Liverpool is a prime example of that He was forced out because of his poor handling of the Luis Suarez case even though Liverpool won the League Cup and reached the F.A Cup final that year. Now I'm not saying that Liverpool should have kept Dalglish, but I am saying that if judged on results alone he should have kept his job. Another example is Harry Rednapp who achieved 4th place with Spurs in 2011/12 but still got sacked (presumably because of his supposed disloyalty in declaring himself interested in the England job).

Other managers have lost their jobs or been forced to quit over 'differences of opinion' with the chairman despite excellent results. The most famous example in British football is Brian Clough way back in 1973 who was given no option but to resign at Derby County by Chairman Sam Longson even after winning the league for the first time in the club's history. Recent examples include Tony Pulis at Crystal Palace in 2014, Kevin Keegan at Newcastle United in 2010 and Martin O'Neil at Aston Villa in 2011.

But surely if you are a chairman and your manager is getting the results you need you let him get on with it (within an agreed budget) and not interfere by telling him who to buy and sell, etc? Screw the strategy! Isn't the best long-term strategy simply to keep hold of a great manager who meets your minimum targets every year?

Other times managers get treated unfairly because of media bias. Journalists just seem to like some managers but dislike others. A good example of this is Mark Hughes. In his recent blog Phil McNulty said that Hughes was doing 'an excellent job' at Stoke despite Stoke being 11th in the table. Sure, Hughes has done a good job at Stoke (and has proved me wrong because I thought he would fail) but it's ridiculous to say he's done an excellent job.

However, McNulty seems not to like ex-Crystal Palace manager Neil Warnock saying that his 'confrontational style is more suited to the Championship'. So, according to McNulty even if Warnock had stayed at Palace and kept them up he still wouldn't be Premiership manager material.

There will be more to say about Phil McNulty in a later post (Clue: I think he's the biggest tosser in football), but for now let's try and forget the misguided idea that managers are only (or even primarily) judged on results. There's a lot more to it than that!