Pochettino 10th Longest Serving Premier League Manager ! Tuesday, 17th Dec 2013 09:48 Such is the state of the Premier League at present after only 10 months in charge at St Mary's Mauricio Pochettino has now been in charge of his club for longer than half of his fellow top flight manager's With the weekend seeing both Steve Clarke and Andre Villas Boas lose their jobs it now means that only 9 Premier League managers have been in their job for longer than Mauricio Pochettino, despite the fact that the Saints manager has only been at St Mary's since the end of January. Indeed Arsene Wenger aside who has now been at Arsenal since September 1996, the second longest serving manager is ex Saints boss Alan Pardew who celebrated his 3rd year in charge at Newcastle last week. Apart from that those two no other manager has managed two consecutive seasons in charge of the same Club in the Premier league, Sam Allardyce and Malky Mackay have been in the hot seat of West Ham & Cardiff respectively since June 2011 but spent their initial time at each club in the Championship. After Pardew comes the likes of Brendon Rogers, Michael Laudrup, Paul Lambert, Chris Hughton & Steve Bruce, all of whom joined their clubs in the summer of 2012 and have yet to complete two consecutive seasons in charge. This perhaps tells us how the Premier league has become, with a panic culture at both ends of the table, the top six clubs are frightened of losing out on a Champions League Place, whereas virtually the rest of the league are scared of relegation and the financial meltdown that would involve. A year ago Steve Clarke was flying high, after 16 games his West Brom side were sixth in the table, above Liverpool & Arsenal with 26 points from their 16 games, they finished the season in 8th place, an excellent achievement when you look at the clubs who finished in the 7 places above them. Yet only six months later Clarke finds himself out of a job, yes they have had a bad run of results that has seen them drop within two points of the drop zone, but a month ago West Brom were 9th and had only failed to win at Chelsea due to a last minute of injury time hotly disputed penalty, if they had held on things might have been different, back then they were seen as a side who would be challenging for a top ten spot for a second successive season, yet a short month later and they have sacked their manager. The Premier has become a league were loyalty has gone out of the window, managers know that they will be sacked if they dont perform and Chairman who may be experienced in business but have little such knowledge of football will axe them in the name of progress, the problem is for clubs is that they create a knock on effect, why should a manager remain loyal ? and perhaps more worryingly, why should a player ? It is hard to see an end in sight to this situation till there is a more even balance financially between the Premier League and the Championship, until then its going to be mad panic, clubs are chasing paydays and not trophies. I suspect it wont be long until Pochettino moves up the table, Christmas and the New year is always a busy period and sorts out the men from the boys position wise, with four games in a short period of time it is easy for a club to go from near the bottom and into the top ten, conversely it is just as easy to go the same way, by the start of 2014 the likes of Sam Allardyce or Malky Mackay will either be looking for another job or being acclaimed as wily old foxes, such is the fickle football media Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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