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A football manager is the brain of his team and it is the hours of effort and planning the managers put in that eventually shows on the pitch. When results go the right way, the managers usually don’t get the accolades they deserve as the players hog the limelight.But when results go the wrong way, the managers take the bulk of the blame – irrespective of how poorly the players fared. This is the hardest part of the job and that is why the job is a challenging one.Every year many managers are sacked across various leagues in Europe and sometimes even some of the best in the business are not spared. So here is a look at five managers who were unfairly sacked in recent years.
#1 Sam Allardyce - Blackburn Rovers
Newly appointed Sunderland manager Sam Allardyce has managed many relegation-threatened Premier League clubs before joining the Black Cats and one such club he managed were Blackburn Rovers. When ‘Big Sam’ was made the manager of Rovers in 2008, the club was staring down the barrel with just 13 points from 17 league games.
Three days after his appointment the club defeated Stoke City 3-0 to end a run of 11 league games without a win. This game was also the first of a nine-game unbeaten streak in all competitions as Allardyce was slowly getting Rovers out of the relegation zone. By the end of the season, Rovers finished 15th and, under Allardyce, they won five games, drew four and lost just one game at Ewood Park.
The following season Blackburn finished 10th in the league and reached the semi-final of the League Cup where they lost to Aston Villa over two legs. Big Sam also impressed the fans by going unbeaten at home against the Big Four at the time – Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal.
During his third season in charge, the club was taken over by Indian company VH Group and almost a month after the takeover, the new owners sacked Allardyce and replaced him with Steve Kean when the club was sitting in a decent 13th place. The decision came as a shock to both the fans and the players, and Sir Alex Ferguson called the decision “absolutely ridiculous”.
Rovers went on to finish 15th at the end of the season and under Kean they managed to win only four out of 17 league games. The following season, the former Premier League champions was relegated to the Championship and they haven’t returned to the Premier League since.
#2 Nigel Pearson - Leicester City
In 2011, Nigel Person joined Leicester City for a second spell with the club. The squad which Pearson inherited had finished 10th in the Championship in the previous season and the Englishman had a Herculean task on his hand to take the club to the Premier League.
Under Pearson, the Foxes finished ninth in the 2011/12 season and in the following season, he led them to a sixth-placed finish and thus qualified for the Premier League playoffs. However, Leicester failed to reach the playoffs final after Anthony Knockheart missed a last minute penalty against Watford which would have taken them to the final. But in the 2013/14 season, Leicester didn’t leave their Premier League hopes for the playoffs and directly gained promotion after winning the Championship.
After reaching the Premier League, the Foxes started brightly and even claimed an emphatic 5-3 win over Manchester United despite trailing 3-1 at one point. However, after 29 league games, the club found themselves at the bottom of the table with just 19 points and four wins overall.
At this point, Leicester were favourites to get relegated, but what happened in the next nine games is what scripts of dramatic movies are made of. Leicester went on to win seven of the last nine games while losing only once to eventual champions Chelsea and finished the season in 14th place!
Despite the work Pearson put into taking Leicester to the Premier League and then to keep the club in the Premier League, he was sacked on 30 June 2015 with the club stating that “the working relationship between Nigel and the Board is no longer viable”.
#3 Manuel Pellegrini - Real Madrid
In 2009, Real Madrid made wholesale changes to their squad after losing the league title to arch-rivals Barcelona in the previous season. Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, Xabi Alonso, Kaka, Alvaro Arbeloa, Ezequiel Garay and Raul Albiol were the notable incoming players and Wesley Sneijder, Arjen Robben, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, Alvaro Negredo, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Javi Garcia, Dani Parejo and Fabio Cannavaro were the high-profile names to depart the club.
After such a huge overhaul in the squad, Pellegrini had a tough job of getting the team to play as a unit. But despite this, Real got off to a flying start by scoring 30 out of the maximum possible 33 points after 11 league games. But the club lost the first El Clasico of the season by a single goal after Lassana Diarra got sent off and Zlatan Ibrahimovic capitalized on the advantage.
Over the course of the season, the Madrid club only lost four games, drew one and racked up 96 points. In the process, the club scored 102 league goals as well. However, Real lost the league title to Barcelona by just three points, but the club’s performance under Pellegrini with such a revamped squad was still commendable.
But the impatient Florentino Perez pulled the plug on the Chilean’s spell as Real Madrid manager and Perez revealed that the club would have kept Pellegrini if the opportunity to sign Jose Mourinho had not arisen. This was very harsh on Pellegrini.
The current Manchester City manager later revealed the frustration he endured during his stay at the Spanish capital. “I didn't have a voice or a vote at Madrid. They sign the best players, but not the best players needed in a certain position. It's no good having an orchestra with the 10 best guitarists if I don't have a pianist.
“Real Madrid have the best guitarists, but if I ask them to play the piano they won't be able to do it so well. He (Perez) sold players that I considered important. We didn't win the Champions League because we didn't have a squad properly structured to be able to win it.”
#4 Carlo Ancelotti - Chelsea
Carlo Ancelotti joined Chelsea in 2009 after leaving AC Milan with whom he had won two Champions League titles and the Italian got off to a good start in the Premier League by defeating Manchester United to win the Community Shield. During Ancelotti’s first season in charge, Chelsea had a disappointing run in the Champions League as the club exited in the quarter-finals. Despite this, the season was Chelsea’s best season in its entire history as the club completed its first double by winning the Premier League and the FA Cup.
The Blues’ Premier League triumph also saw the club becomes the first team to score more than 100 league goals in a Premier League season and the first club to score 100 plus goals in a season since Tottenham Hotspur in 1962/63.
They started the next season brightly, but a midseason slump saw the side slip to second in the table towards the end of the season. On matchday 36, Chelsea faced table toppers Manchester United at Old Trafford with the Blues needing a win to close the three-point gap to the Red Devils.
However, Chelsea couldn’t defeat United and had to settle for second in the league. In the Champions League, Ancelotti’s side once again exited in the quarter-finals and this time to fellow league rivals Manchester United. What made matters worse for the Italian was the unexpected poor performances from the club’s record signing Fernando Torres who managed to score just once.
Even though Chelsea didn’t manage to win a trophy in his second season, club owner Roman Abramovich overlooked all the good work Ancelotti did in his first season and sacked the Italian. What stung more was that he was sacked an hour after the final fixture of the season at Goodison Park – in the tunnel!
#5 Vincent Del Bosque - Real Madrid
Real Madrid have a history of changing managers more regularly than you change a baby’s diaper, and in 2003 the victim was Vincent Del Bosque who later went on to win a FIFA World Cup and two Euros with Spain. The Spaniard was appointed as Real Madrid manager on a permanent basis in 1999 and he ushered the team through its best phase in recent years.
In his first season in charge, Real lifted its eight Champions League title and the club repeated the feat again in 2002. In his four seasons in charge, Real at least reached the last four of the Champions League on every occasion. In addition to the triumphs in Europe, Los Blancos also won two La Liga titles, a Spanish Super Cup, a UEFA Super Cup and an Intercontinental Cup during Del Bosque’s tenure as manager.
It was during this period that the club adopted their Galacticos policy and Real Madrid signed some of the most marketable players available at that time. It is said that these players were signed by Florentino Perez and Jorge Valdano without the inputs of Del Bosque and there were also allegations that these men had more power over team selections and other aspects of the club than the manager.
In 2003, Real Madrid decided not to renew Del Bosque’s contract a day after he helped the club win their 29th La Liga title. The Spaniard’s departure came as a shock as he was highly successful and a man who was well appreciated around the word due to his calm, composed character.
After Del Bosque’s departure, Real went through seven managers in four years and failed to win a trophy until they won the league title in 2007 under Fabio Capello. In the Champions League, Real failed to get past the Round of 16 in every season from 2004/05 to 2009/10 and the club had to wait till 2014 to finally win the Champions League again.
