In the cutthroat world of professional football in the modern era, is there any particular month in which a manager can relax… safe in the knowledge that their job is, for 30 or so days at least, more secure than normal? Conversely, is there any specific calendar month in which a head coach should open their laptop, load Microsoft Word and begin jazzing up their CV in earnest ahead of a more likely sacking?
At the time of writing, the 2024/25 campaign was four months old and already a quartet of managers – Erik ten Hag, Steve Cooper, Gary O’Neil and Russell Martin – had been sacked in October, November and December (x2), respectively. Adding those to Premier League data from the competition’s establishment for the 1992/93 season, here’s a look at the months in which managers are at their safest, and which provide them with the ultimate peril.
New Year Cheer
Maybe, just maybe, the decision-makers at Premier League clubs have made a collective New Year’s resolution to be sympathetic towards their managers. Because, surprisingly, January is only the sixth most-prolific month when it comes to Premier League managerial sackings.
Surprising is an apt word, because the festive period – when games come thick and fast, and so problems within a club can be magnified exponentially – should, in theory, be something of a graveyard for English Premier League head coaches.
But, according to the data, there have *only* been 25 managers sacked in January in three decades of the Premier League, albeit Frank Lampard – shown the door by Everton in January 2023, Rafa Benitez (Everton) and Claudio Ranieri (Watford) will take few crumbs of comfort from that having started the new year by being given their P45 in times past.
February is supposed to be a month for romance, with Cupid’s arrow striking on Valentine’s Day. For Premier League managers, there is a chance to feel the love too, given that February ranks seventh of the 12 months in terms of sackings; there’s been 23 over the years, with Jesse Marsch and Nathan Jones biting the dust in February 2023.
Spring Kings
As the worst of the winter weather subsides (supposedly), Premier League managers can breathe something of a sigh of relief as well. It’s not all good news, because there’s been 24 sackings in March since the English Premier League’s foundation in 1992. But April is a curiosity: there’s only been 16 sackings in the month in more than thirty years.
Why is that? Maybe it’s the calm before the storm, because as we’ll learn shortly May is (spoiler alert) the worst month for Premier League sackings. With the end of the season just a few weeks away, April is seemingly the time when chairmen and women, directors and board members take stock of how their head coach is performing.
Although April has been a quiet month for managerial sackings, that trend has started to change in recent years with Graham Potter ousted by Chelsea, Brendan Rodgers by Leicester and Marcelo Bielsa by Leeds in recent years.
May Luck Be on Your Side
It’s official: May is the worst month to be a Premier League manager. The season, of course, comes to an end, so while some clubs are left to celebrate their achievements, others are left to reflect on where things went wrong. Naturally that leads to dismissals and P45s in great quantity.
Since the Premier League’s foundation, there has been 58 managers sacked in the month of May; a figure that doesn’t include those whose contract ran out or who decided to leave their club by mutual consent. While the 2023/24 season contributed zero May sackings – Jürgen Klopp resigned from his post at Liverpool, David Moyes saw out his contract at West Ham, and Roberto De Zerbi left Brighton by mutual consent. Otherwise, it’s a month that has represented something of a bloodbath for Premier League managers.
Summer Lovin’
It’s only natural that the summer is a quiet time for managerial comings and goings, with many of the big decisions taken in May. That said, there is still some overflow into June, with 36 sackings taking place in the month that heralds the start of British Summertime – Gary O’Neil sacked by Bournemouth in June 2023.
If you get sacked in July, well, you’re a statistical anomaly. Only nine managers have been given the bullet in the seventh month of the calendar year, which – given that there’s no games being played – comes as little surprise. Clearly, some have found grounds to fall out with their board; most likely over transfer policy.
One anomaly was Nigel Pearson’s sacking by Watford in July 2020; that was during the pandemic-hit season that went on until the end of July owing to the delays earlier in the campaign. It’s amazing to see how many managers sacked in August and September, given how few games of the season have been played at that point. But 12 bosses have been dismissed in August – including Scott Parker, who lost his job at Bournemouth just 25 days into the 2022/23 season after a humiliating 0-9 loss to Liverpool.
Winter Is Coming
By October, decision makers at Premier League football clubs have enough of a sample size to see when things are going wrong. And so the glut of 30 managerial sackings in October is of little surprise, while the 42 managers that have lost their job in November will perhaps rue the modern day trend for dismissals in and around the second international break of the domestic campaign, which typically falls around the second week of November.
December, meanwhile, is supposed to be a month of giving, of forgiveness, of compassion. But not so in the bloodthirsty world of the Premier League, with 42 managers sacked in the build-up to – or thereafter – Christmas.
Both O’Neill and Russell Martin were sacked ten days shy of the Yuletide celebrations in 2024/25, but spare a thought for José Mourinho – sacked on December 18 by Manchester United in 2018, and Manuel Pellegrini, who was still digesting his Brussels sprouts when dismissed by West Ham on December 28, 2019.
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