Poll: Would a Managers Transfer Window Work?

By: Daryl | October 29th, 2008

The English League Managers Association are sick of seeing their members get sacked. Apparently the average tenure of a manager in English football (Premier and Football League) is now under eighteen months. Not good, and Spurs’ recent P45ing of Juande Ramos just nine games into the Premier League season has caused quite a stir.

So the LMA have a plan: A transfer window for managers. Meaning that just as players can now only transfer between clubs in the summer and in January, so managers will only be “transferred” (read: sacked) within a certain window.

It’s actually less of a plan and more just an idea right now, but it sounds like it’s something the LMA are keen on. “We do not think we have one silver bullet but at the moment the tenure for managers is short and getting shorter,” said the LMA’s chairman, Howard Wilkinson.

The LMA would need to put together a proposal, and they’d need to persuade the FA, the Premier League, the clubs etc. It would take quite a campaign, a campaign that would cite the benefits of having a long term manager like Alex Ferguson at Man Utd and Arsene Wenger at Arsenal.

And it would need some serious thought. For example, should the managers window be the same as the players window? What if a manager is really screwing up outside of the window, eg playing his star striker in goal? How would the LMA align this with the rest of the world?

If the LMA can iron out the details then I think this could work, and would buy managers more precious time if their job is under threat (in that they’d be safe at least until the next window). What do you think?

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Rob

What if a manager wanted to leave his job? If he couldn't because of the window, he'd have to half-heartedly lead his team out for months.
Anthony

No absolutely not, for one thing a managers job depends solely on results and as we saw with Ramos getting sacked at Spurs, it doesn't matter how much glory you have previously brought to the club (in their case the first cup for 9 years) but on the current situation. It can be argued that without the sacking of Ramos Spurs could have been in an even deeper hole meaning they would almost definitely go down. If there was such thing as a managers transfer window Ramos would definitely not have been sacked in the summer months because of the success of last season, but this year the results just weren't there, resulting in him losing his job. The football world is a harsh one, but then again, thats why we all love football isn't it?
Laurie

Interesting idea. Would it keep the managers from being scapegoated, do you think? Or would it just allow the anger and resentment to build to an explosive level?