Here’s a sort of chicken-and-egg question for you: is it success that buys a manager time in football, or is it showing loyalty in your boss that ultimately leads to success on the pitch? It’s a hypothetical question with no concrete answer, but you do wonder sometimes if a club that constantly chops and changes its manager is ultimately destined for disaster – regardless of how those in the hot-seat have performed.
Exhibit A: Manchester United. They sacked Erik ten Hag in October 2024, which means they’ve now fired five different managers in little over a decade. In that time, they have spent billions on new players and, by and large, still gone backwards. Whoever replaced Sir Alex Ferguson back in the summer of 2013 was on a hiding to nothing anyway – how on earth do you replicate the achievements of a man that won a staggering 13 Premier League titles and two Champions Leagues?
David Moyes, Louis van Gaal, José Mourinho, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Ten Hag have all tried, and mostly failed, to match up to the legendary Scot at Old Trafford, so now the club is tasked with facing a new head coach for the sixth time in eleven years. So, does loyalty equal success in football? Or, are clubs right to be cutthroat in their hiring and firing of their manager?
The Butterfly Effect
It’s one of English football’s favourite ‘what if?’ moments. What if Sir Alex Ferguson had been sacked by Manchester United? During the 1989/90 season, Manchester United – with the Scot at the helm – were struggling. They had not won for eight games leading into an FA Cup third round tie with Nottingham Forest; rumour had it that defeat would cost Ferguson his job.
As it transpires, Mark Robins notched a winner for the Red Devils and Ferguson’s job was saved – although Martin Edwards, the United chairman at the time, has since intimated publicly that he wasn’t in danger of the sack anyway. But Robins’ goal could have been a butterfly effect, because how long would Ferguson really have remained in charge had United lost to Forest and continued on their downward march?
Could any of Moyes, Van Gaal, Mourinho, Solskjaer or Ten Hag built a dynasty even a fraction as successful as Ferguson’s if given extra time in the dugout at Old Trafford? We will never know, of course, but it’s still good fun to speculate nonetheless. And, where would United be without those 20+ years with Ferguson at the helm?
Loyalty Costs Nothing
Who are the most successful Premier League teams of the past decade? Immediately, Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool spring to mind, while if pressed on a fourth you might argue that Chelsea just about justify selection. Isn’t it interesting that the former trio (not so much the Blues) have been amongst the most loyal to their managers in that timeframe?
Man City: Pellegrini & Guardiola
Since October 2014, City have employed the services of just two managers: Manuel Pellegrini and Pep Guardiola. Between them (at the time of writing), they have won seven Premier League titles, a Champions League, two FA Cups and six League Cups.
Liverpool: Jürgen Klopp
Of course, it helps that the club’s owners are filthy rich, but as others have proved – including United, for that matter – money isn’t a guarantor of success in football. As for Liverpool, their most successful period of the modern era came courtesy of Jürgen Klopp, the head coach who held the manager’s job at Anfield for just under nine years.
Arsenal: Wenger & Arteta
Since 2014, Arsenal have had just three managers. Arsène Wenger brought the club incredible success in his 22-year tenure, while Unai Emery has since shown his class with Aston Villa. The third of the trio, Mikel Arteta, has brought the FA Cup to the Emirates Stadium, and may yet go on to win more silverware.
Chelsea’s Success Despite Manager Loyalty
Chelsea, meanwhile, have been successful DESPITE their lack of loyalty to their managers. There’s always an anomaly to spoil your carefully curated argument. José Mourinho and Antonio Conte have both won the Premier League for Chelsea since the start of the 2014/15 season, Guus Hiddink clinched the FA Cup and Thomas Tuchel secured the Champions League in that timeframe too.
Mind you, the reigns of Maurizio Sarri, Frank Lampard, Graham Potter and Mauricio Pochettino – again, each came after 2014 – were disastrous, for the most part, so in that sense Chelsea’s rotating door policy has been a failure.
Does Loyalty Pay in Football?
If you wanted to, you could examine more than a century of data to try and find a correlation between loyalty to a manager and success on the pitch. But we’re particularly interested in the decade-long period from the start of the 2014/15 Premier League season to the present day. Why? Because it feels as though this is the period in which executive decision-makers at football clubs have reached the peak of their trigger-happiness.
Let’s take a look at the clubs that have been ever present in the Premier League between 2014/15 and 2024/25, and plot how many managers (permanent or interim with 20+ games in charge) they have had with their average finishing position in the table.
| Team | No. of Managers | Avg. League Position |
|---|---|---|
| Manchester City | 2 | 1.7 |
| Liverpool | 2 | 3.8 |
| Manchester United | 5 | 4.5 |
| Arsenal | 3 | 4.6 |
| Tottenham | 5 | 4.7 |
| Chelsea | 10 | 4.9 |
| West Ham | 6 | 10.5 |
| Everton | 8 | 12 |
| Crystal Palace | 7 | 12.3 |
There are some caveats to the numbers, of course. This is only a small sample, so conclusions are tentative, while there’s no coincidence that the most successful clubs in the Premier League are also (mostly) its richest.
But the table above is revelatory: the more loyal a club is to their manager, the more success they have had, on average. However, does the manager keep their job for long periods because they’ve been successful, or have they brought success because the club has stuck with them through the tough times – in the same way that United did by showing faith in Ferguson all those years ago?
