December 5 – The average lifespan of a Premier League manager is less than 1.5 years. Mark Hughes, who was sacked by Southampton after their draw with Manchester United at the weekend, lasted just 8 months and is Saints’ 23rdmanager in the past 20 years.
Man Utd boss Jose Mourinho, who at odds of 5/2 is now the bookmakers’ favourite to be the next Premier League manager fired, is in the second safest job in English top league football, according to stats compiled by the chucknorisk.com website that looked at Premier League manager changes over the past 20 years.
While Saints managerial sacking record is one of the best out there on the normally relaxed and easy-going sunny South coast (Hughes has been replaced today by the next victim, Austrian Ralph Hasenhuttl), even they are topped by Crystal Palace who have had 25 managers and caretakers since 98/99 (one every 10 months).
“Overall the managers of the current Premier League clubs got replaced more often this decade than the one before. From season 1998/99 till season 2007/08 the average manager-period at a Premier League club has been 18.5 months. In the decade from 2008/09 till 2018/19 it has been 16 months. Overall that makes a bit less than 18-month manager-lifetime at one club on average and 281 employed Premier League manager in 20 years in total,” says the report.
The longest serving manager at a Premier League club is Bournemouth’s Eddie Howe who has been at the club six years and two months and is probably in his most successful season there, so far.
The best paid manager in the Premier League at £15.3 million a year is Pep Guardiola at ‘money-is-no-object’ Manchester City. The club has had nine managers in the past 20 years. At those kinds of wages they will do well to avoid the severance payments – or, looking at it another way, managers will do well to collect them.
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