Ange or Amorim to ‘win’ sack race?

Postecoglou likely to be next managerial casualty even before Amorim, but results will decide.

To sack or not to sack. That is the question.

The second international break is often a time when EPL club chairmen feel a twitchiness in their trigger fingers.

Two managers have already bitten the dust this season, and it’s a two-horse race to be the next.

And the finger of one chairman has already seen action.

Nottingham Forest owner, Evangelos Marinakis, fired Nuno Espiritu Santo, whose successor, Ange Postecoglou, is now a heavy favourite to be the next.

A month into the job, he’s yet to win in seven games in all competitions.

Postecoglou’s rival for this dubious honour is Manchester United’s Ruben Amorim.

His position appeared a tad safer after last weekend’s win over Sunderland.

But whether he’s still there because of that or because a sizeable sum would be saved if he’s sacked after completing a year of his contract, only Jim Ratcliffe knows.

The United co-owner has already given him a vote of confidence, which is normally the sign of vital organs shutting down.

“He’s safe.” he said. “Managers need time, it’s not like flicking a light switch and it’s all going to be roses tomorrow.”

So, there you have two extreme examples: one manager likely to get precious little time, and the other, possibly too much.
It’s always a tricky decision on which the immediate future of the club could hinge.

Too hasty and you could be missing out on a Fergie; too late and you’re stuck with a dud, as Southampton last season and Rangers
this, found with Russell Martin.

Alex Ferguson, who took three years to win his first trophy, was famously one game from the axe.

There is no way of telling how a football chairman’s mind works when results are going against him.

Marinakis appointed Ange 13 hours after Nuno left, but that’s fairly pedestrian by his standards.

In 2019, he replaced Martin O’Neill with Sabri Lamouchi just 18 minutes after O’Neill’s sacking was announced. The former Forest hero was still in the building.

The high turnover in the dugout suggests that the head honchos are more prone to panic over football than the commercial empires they preside over.

It creates a climate where hardly anyone is safe. All but the top few are never more than three games from the sack.

Look at Enzo Maresca’s Mourinhoesque touchline run to celebrate Chelsea’s late winner against Liverpool!

It earned him a ludicrous red card, but he was the most relieved man on the ground.

And this season, almost no one can totally relax as the three promoted teams all look as if they mean to stay.

However you look at it, Amorim has done well to last this long despite being statistically the worst manager United have ever had by a distance. He still hasn’t managed back-to-back wins!

With Ratcliffe’s reputation for penny-pinching, the cynical explanation remains plausible, but it may also be because no candidate is screaming to take the reins.

Given the struggles of his current choice and the expensive cock-up of keeping Erik ten Hag, the petrochemical billionaire is doubly wary of making another wrong call.

Marinakis may feel the same. He gave Nuno a new three-year contract and could not have foreseen that the arrival of Edu (as overall director of his football empire) would prove so catastrophic.

Nuno’s anger was sparked by the ex-Arsenal man more than the owner, but whatever it was, he talked himself out of a job, in which he was working wonders.

The popular Portuguese had steered Forest from relegation battlers to European qualifiers with little possession and lightning counter-attacks.

Removing him was hard enough for players and fans to take.

But Marinakis compounded it by replacing him with the polar opposite in playing style: Ange-ball after Nuno-ball is almost a different sport.

Since the Aussie had Spurs top after 10 games, his record at both clubs is abysmal. In the subsequent 70 games, his teams have earned 79 points, and he has a win percentage of 33.

Although he won the Europa League, he was a risky appointment that may have owed something to sharing Greek heritage with the owner.

But surely that was not enough to earn him the nod over the likes of Oliver Glasner, Andoni Iraola, Marco Silva, any of whom Forest fans would have preferred if they’d been up for it.

To be fair, the fixture list was cruel to Ange, with four successive away games beginning at Arsenal.

By the time of his first home game, he was still without a win, so he never had the fans on his side.

After the euphoria of a long-awaited return to Europe, they were singing, “You’ll be sacked in the morning” – to their own manager.

They never wanted him; they wanted Nuno and couldn’t understand – and still don’t – why three grown men couldn’t have sorted things out.

One version is that Edu vetoed Nuno’s choice of signings (including Adoma Traore) in the window, but surely it must be more than that.

In mitigation, in the middle of this dire run, Forest did have their moments.

They silenced a 70,000 crowd in Seville, in what was on paper their toughest game in the Europa League, against Real Betis.

Only a late goal by Antony (yes, him) pegged them back to a 2-2 draw after a superb first-half display.

But subsequent defeats to Sunderland and Newcastle have deepened the gloom in Nottingham.

There are fears that this glorious revival of twice European champions may be only fleeting.

For once, it may be that there’s no one lined up at either Forest or United.

To elite managers, there is something of the poisoned chalice about both even though they’ve spent fortunes on new signings.

And United are earning a reputation as a finishing school – every graduate seems to perform out of his skin as soon as he leaves.

Even Rasmus Hojlund scored!

But despite this uncharacteristic hesitancy of the owners of both clubs, you feel that by the third international break, the Sack Race will have a new winner.

And it’s likely to come from a field of two. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.