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Some of the best managers in football naturally end up managing the biggest clubs and if they cannot consistently meet the expectations, they will be shown the exit door.
Modern football is influenced by a plethora of factors. The raucousness of social media has pervaded the realms of professional football and public discontent has come within close proximity of those in charge of clubs. The world demands immediate results and clubs are configuring themselves to supply exactly that.
As such, managing football clubs has become a cruel business. The scrutiny is intense and the repercussions are usually dire. Managing a football club is no easy task and it is challenging from one day to the next. But when a union reaches a stage where things don't look like they will get better, something has to give.
Several high-profile managers who have been in charge of some of the biggest clubs in Europe have faced the sack a ridiculous amount of times. It's often not a fair reflection of their credentials but it is what it is. Without further ado, let's take a look at five top managers who have been sacked the most number of times.
#5 Jose Mourinho - 4 times
'The Special One' is undoubtedly one of the greatest football managers of the 21st century. He has won numerous titles and done the unthinkable in Europe with teams like Porto and Inter Milan.
Mourinho transformed Chelsea into European stalwarts and did a job on Pep Guardiola's Barcelona, which was purported to be the greatest football team in recent times, by pipping them to the La Liga title.
But all those triumphs come at a price. His most recent stints have also ended with him being sacked at Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur.
Mourinho champions a siege mentality that usually withers away quite soon purely because it is not sustainable. After his immensely successful first stint at Chelsea, Mourinho was given the sack after his third season in charge.
He then went on to win the Champions League with Inter Milan before leaving to manage Real Madrid. He returned to Chelsea in 2013 and won the league in his second season before the team capitulated once again under him in his third season in charge. Mourinho was sacked in between the 2015-16 season.
The Portuguese cut a frustrating figure in his final days at Manchester United as the club started to lose its identity and was dragged across the media for playing dull and drab football. He was sacked from Old Trafford and then he went on to take up the Tottenham Hotspur job.
Mourinho has now been sacked by Tottenham Hotspur after the club endured a slew of negative results. His final Premier League defeat in charge of Spurs came against Manchester United.
#4 Sam Allardyce - 5 times
Big Sam is one of the most experienced managers in the game right now and has had more than 30 years of experience in the field. Sam Allardyce has managed a raft of top English clubs including Bolton Wanderers, Newcastle United, Blackburn Rovers, West Ham United, Sunderland, Crystal Palace and Everton.
He was also in charge of the English national side for a short while. Allardyce's first sacking came during his first stint as player-manager at West Bromwich Albion, the club that he currently managers, in 1991. He took over as manager of Blackpool in 1994 and was sacked in 1996.
After spending seven years at Bolton Wanderers, he subsequently moved to Newcastle United where he didn't last a year and was fired within seven months of his appointment. He was sacked by Blackburn Rovers in 2010, two years after he was appointed.
His role as the manager of the England National Team lasted just a little over two months following allegations of malpractice.
#3 Roy Hodgson - 5 times
One of the longest-serving managers in world football at the moment, Roy Hodgson has been doing this job since 1976 when he first took over as manager of Halmstads. He has managed more than 20 teams in the past 44 years.
The most high-profile of his jobs include Inter Milan, Liverpool, Blackburn Rovers and Udinese. He has also been the manager of four international sides, namely England, Switzerland, Finland and the UAE.
Hodgson has been sacked a total of five times in his career, which is not a bad haul at all at the highest level of the game where he has had a career that has spanned four and a half decades.
Hodgson's first sack came at Blackburn Rovers in 1998. Udinese sacked him in 2001 and he was fired from his role as the Finland national team's manager in 2007. Hodgson lasted just one season at Liverpool and was dismissed in 2010.
His fifth and final sacking came in 2016 when he was removed from the capacity of the England national side's manager.
#2 Carlo Ancelotti - 5 times
Carlo Ancelotti is a legend of the game both as a player and as a manager. Ancelotti's sides have played some great football and he is one of the three managers to have won the UEFA Champions League thrice.
However, the Everton manager's stints as manager have been quite short of late and he has been sacked a total of four times over the past 12 years. Ancelotti's first sacking came at Juventus in 1999 after the club went trophyless in the 1998-99 season.
Ancelotti then managed AC Milan for eight years before moving to Chelsea and won the Premier League and FA Cup in the 2009-10 season. However, the Italian was fired immediately after Chelsea's last game of the 2010-11 season.
Ancelotti subsequently took over at Real Madrid a couple of years later and won the Copa Del Rey and UEFA Champions League in the 2013-14 season before being relieved of his duties in 2015 with Florentino Perez saying it was a difficult decision to make. The Real Madrid president added:
"However at this club the demands are huge and we need a new impulse in order to win trophies and be at our best,"
Ancelotti's fourth sacking came at Bayern Munich after he reportedly lost the dressing room in the 2017-18 season. His fifth and final sacking came at Napoli after a year and a half in charge.
#1 Claudio Ranieri - 8 times
Yes, the affable Claudio Ranieri has been sacked a total of eight times in his managerial career. The Italian has managed some of the biggest clubs in the world like Napoli, Valencia, Atletico Madrid, Chelsea, Juventus, Inter Milan, AS Roma, AS Monaco and Leicester City.
Despite being at so many big clubs, Ranieri has only ever won one top-flight league title as manager and that came at Leicester City. Unfortunately, he was sacked by Leicester too as they failed to replicate their heroics from the title-winning season.
Ranieri's first sack came at Napoli. He was then sacked by Chelsea after the club went trophyless for four years. Ranieri was fired from his jobs at Valencia, Juventus, Inter Milan and AS Monaco as well.
Before taking over as manager of Leicester City, Ranieri was in charge of the Greece national side for just five months before he was fired. Yes, you could say that Ranieri has been through the wringer.
