New managers are facing an almost one-in-two chance of being fired before the end of the season, a finding from Guardian analysis that shows 22 of the last 50 permanent Premier League managers to leave their roles lasted less than a year. The betting markets reflect this reality. Six of the eight Premier League managers deemed most likely by bookmakers to be next to leave their post were appointed in 2026.
Football management is a very precarious employment position. It looks inevitable that some of the 11 men who have only been in their role since earlier this year will fall before the final hurdle of the 2026-27 season – even if none of them are the first to move on. Vítor Pereira, Graham Potter and Thomas Frank became managers of Wolves, West Ham and Tottenham respectively in 2025, started last season in those roles and yet were removed by mid-February of this year at the latest.
Across the preceding decade, 25 men who started a season as a new manager, appointed in that year, did not see out the season in question. Uncertainty reigns because managerial turnover is so high, making predictions near-impossible. Nottingham Forest are at Anfield on Saturday; they have recently done well at Liverpool, winning their last two visits.
The first of those, in September 2024, was the only Premier League defeat the Reds suffered in the first 30 games of what became a title-winning campaign. Arne Slot mentioned it in interviews for months afterwards, so bothered by the loss. But a lot has changed since then.
The visitors were managed by Nuno Espírito Santo for the first of their two recent Anfield wins, Sean Dyche for the second. Forest are already on to their second manager since the latter was dismissed. Even allowing for Evangelos Marinakis’s volatile style of manager retention, the theme of rapid turnover of head coaches pervades the Premier League in 2026.
All of which raises an interesting question. Where once we might have looked at the head-to-head record between two clubs ahead of a clash to get a feel for what might unfold, should we now focus on the managers instead? What they bring tactically and how quickly they can implement their ideas is increasingly relevant at the top level of English football.
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