Playing the long game

It is August, and another football season will soon be upon us. Spare a moment, however, for those football managers who will not make it to the end of the season.

Owners and supporters have become increasingly restless in recent years, with the number of dismissals and resignations across England’s top four divisions of 92 clubs steadily increasing from a low of 35 in 2002-03 to a staggering 58 in 2010-11. To put this into perspective, the League Managers Association calculates that two-thirds of England’s professional football managers were last year dismissed with less than one and a half years in the post, and half of those dismissed were within one year of their appointment. The irony is all this short-termism is unlikely to produce results...