Why don’t clubs give managers more time? (Sometimes one season is too long!)

 

 

• Fines and suspensions don’t stop unwanted behaviour. Why not try something else?

By Tony Attwood

In May 2025 the headline appeared in www.goal.com saying ‘Sorry but SACK ARTETA!’ – Arsenal fans call for manager’s head & rivals take aim at ‘full Stoke’ tactics as another trophyless season beckons after Champions League semi-final heartbreak at hands of PSG.”

Now as you may have noticed, this season the Arsenal will not only be defending champions, they will also have the longest-serving manager in the Premier League.  And we have the longest serving manager because he was not sacked during his opening incomplete season, when Arsenal came eighth, nor his first complete season when Arsenal came eighth again, nor the next season when Arsenal came fifth.

Nor was he sacked when following that fifth place finish we had three successive second place finishes, despite calls from fans for him to go because he didn’t have a “winning mentality” (whatever that is)..  No, he was kept and now we are the champions.

But on 7 May 2025 that ‘Sorry but SACK ARTETA!’ appeared on Goal.  (If they subsequently apologised I must have missed it). Worse it opened with the lines “Arsenal fans call for manager’s head & rivals take aim at ‘full Stoke’ tactics as another trophyless season beckons after Champions League semi-final heartbreak at hands of PSG.”

Now I must admit I didn’t notice much of a repeat of the “full Stoke” accusation during the summer celebrations this year.   But him staying wasn’t for want of trying by the media and the bloggers to get him out, with statements such as “Arsenal fans are calling for Mikel Arteta to be sacked after the Gunners crashed out of the Champions League against Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday.”

And we might in passing note that Arsenal were no knocked out in 2025 but “crashed out”.  It is simplistic almost childish language, but it is effectively used to make the point and to get the result required.   Which is of course disruption to Arsenal and the cessation of any serious long term attempt to build a club that wins trophies..

Most people who had watched Arsenal under Arteta’s time in charge were able to see year on year how he was progressing despite the multi-billion pound purchasing tactics of ManC, and most knew enough about football today to see that just the purchase of one or two players was not going to get Arsenal to the top.  True, there needed to be some new players, but also there needed to be a tactical change too, and that was going to take time.

But as the media reveal every day, football clubs and managers don’t have time for development over time.   The demand is trophies at once.  Which means sacking the manager, which in fact then has the opposite effect.   Just look at Tottenham or Nottingham Forest.

Of course the era of ManC’s unlimited spending made life impossible for a club such as Arsenal which was run on more traditional, and I would most certainly say, more honourable financial lines.   But Arteta was nonetheless willing to take this on, knowing that one day either the finances of ManC would slip, or the manager at ManC (under whom Arteta had served) would crack, or Arteta himself through careful planning and the use of the increasing finances that Arsenal had available, would be able to outpace ManC.

But most importantly we can learn from the events of summer 2025 that there was a concerted effort by the media to stop Arsenal completing their task of competing with the Mancs.   That piece from 8 May 2025 says it all:.

Arsenal fans are calling for Mikel Arteta to be sacked after the Gunners crashed out of the Champions League against Paris Saint-Germain on …

Of course it wasn’t just 4-4-2 that was going for Arteta, in 2025 – the stories keep running and running, as on  20 April this year when The Athletic’s David Ornstein  suggested once again that Arteta could well leave Arsenal.

That was not an isolated piece for it followed an artile on 12 April this year on the yahoo website saying (insanely in my view) “Arteta could be sacked by Arsenal, with a replacement already in sight”.   Immediately stories started appearing saying “Arsenal have four managers to consider….”

Now it is important also to note that Arsenal are not alone in getting this sort of mindless gibberish tripe from the media on  regular basis, but Arsenal does seem to get more of it than other clubs, and it seems to have not relationship with how Arsenal are doing or what is likely to be happening in the real world.   Take the Daily Express (and I most certainly don’t mean that literally) on  16 Aug 2021 which told us that “former Tottenham star Jamie O’Hara backed Arteta to be the first manager to lose his job. he’s going to be the first manager to get the sack.”

Now I have presented the facts many times before and I won’t bore you with them again, but a study of Premier League clubs over the last half dozen years or more shows that sacking the manager mostly does NOT improve results.   Indeed most of the time it does the opposite.   If you want proof just take a look at Nottingham Forest, or Tottenham Hots or….

Sacking the manager might occasionally give a club an immediate uplift, but over the period of a year it mostly makes things worse.

Finding the right new manager is difficult, and even when a club gets the right one (as Arsenal have with Arteta) there can be a few fasle steps along the way.   If you ever are tempted to think that Arteta should be replaced (as the media argued until the 2025/6 season) you might consider Emery with his utterly insane transfer purchase of Pépé.  He cost us £72 million, and left on a free transfer to Trabzonspor.

In short be careful what the media wish for – it is very rarely in Arsenal’s best interests.

 

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