329 days

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

I've decided to start a thread (and update it periodically in breach of all OTF etiquette about not replying to your own otherwise nil-threads) to monitor the median time-to-date in office of managers at the 92 English league clubs.

As I noted 11 days ago on the "Rodgered" thread, the median time then was 329 days. Thanks to a sacking-free 11 day period (and counting) since then, the median time has now gone up to 340 days. I wonder what the chances are of its hitting the giddy heights of 1 year. Today is, incidentally, the first day for a while when 45 managers can claim 1 year or longer in post, i.e. just one club short of half the total.

So, as of now: 340 days. {edit: it was 341 actually, by my counting from 16 December. Maybe the wiki page writer excludes both the day of appointment and the current day.)

[Various Artist]

329 days

Just to prevent any chance of this being an otherwise-nil thread, can I just chime in with my support for your idea EEG? Even desensitised as we are nowadays to the frenetic whirling of the managerial merry-go-round, I was startled when you brought out that stat on the 'Rodgered' thread, having only looked at that Wikipedia list a couple of times since Alex Ferguson ceased to have the #1 spot on lockdown. I really can't see the median hitting even a year again, sad to say, with the way things have gone, but here's hoping.

Looking forward to your first update tomorrow telling us it's clicked up to 341 days, anyway, with luck.

[cantagalo]

329 days

Give me a bit of time and I'll do one for Brazilian Serie A managers.

My guess would be less than 100 days.

[tee rex]

329 days

More work for someone else to do: average number of days in the job after a manager has won promotion.

Inspired by Barrow (a phrase I've never knowingly typed before), whose chairman sacked their manager because he didn't want to "give the season away". The one after they went up.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

329 days

If Arsene Wenger does hang his anorak up at the end of the season, Paul Tisdale will be English football's longest-serving manager (I'm assuming he'd have to run onto St James Park in a Plymouth shirt and shit on the pitch to get sacked there).

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

329 days

Thanks VH! I wasn't going to update this every single day (though anyone else is free to of course - I'm simply reading off the data from the Wikipedia page, albeit that hasn't been updated yet today).

Actually, having engaged my brain and counted the days myself (based on the date of appointment given on Wiki) it seems that my previously given figures of 329 and 340 were a day short each, presumably as the Wikipedia page was either out of date or based on a slightly off calculation. The 46th and 47th longest serving managers were both appointed on 16 December 2014, which by my reckoning means they have been in post 342 days now, rather than the 341 I was expecting. (The Wiki page still says 340).

But the number has indeed gone up by 1 day today, despite the rather unpleasant leaks about the Swansea board "considering Monk's future".

On another pedantic methodological note, the figure I plan to use is the midpoint between the days in post of the 46th and 47th longest serving managers. No such "half way" calculation needed at the moment, as the 46th and 47th have served exactly the same number of days in post to date.

[Third rate Leszno]

329 days

tee rex wrote:
Inspired by Barrow (a phrase I've never knowingly typed before)

You and the rest of the developed world, I suspect.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

329 days

It's gone up to 345 days now. (The two managers appointed on 16 December continue to hold 46th and 47th places by seniority.)

[Various Artist]

329 days

I read that as "by senility", which of course is a very different ranking.

Considerate of the two of them to have been appointed on the same day, isn't it? When they move up the list and you have to actually calculate the 46-and-a-halfth longest-serving manager it'll be much more annoying.

[Southport Zeb]

329 days

Tony Humes has left Colchester today.

[Various Artist]

329 days

Bugger. Well it looks like you'll have to start calculating as of now, EEG. Still, at least he'd made it all the way to a whole year there. Good innings.

Noticed we don't have a link to that Wiki page here. Here it is: List of English Premier League & Football League managers by length of reign

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

329 days

337.5 days (half way between 345 and 330: appointments on 16 and 31 December).

[Patrick Thistle]

329 days

I find this interesting. Keep it up EEG.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

329 days

We've got to up the interest by turning it into a futures spread bet. Let's say what it will be on the morning of May 1st 2016.

I'll say 355. I think more teams are going to stick rather than twist.

[Various Artist]

329 days

I don't have your confidence in our collective boards of directors, Rogin, so I fear it'll have gone the other way. I'll go for 318.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

329 days

I'll guess 351 days.

Currently, after taking account of Tony Humes' exit, the 60th longest serving was appointed on 13 May, and the 61st was appointed on 19 May, so the midpoint of those two is 16 May, meaning 351 days as at 1 May (leap year less 15 days) if that turns out to be the half way point in the table. In other words, I'm guessing that 14 of the current most senior 60 will leave their posts by 1 May.

[jeanmid]

329 days

Well it only took Chesterfield six and a half months to work out that Dean Saunders was shit. They could have asked me and I could have told him he was shit in six and a half minutes.

[Sam]

329 days

I'd love to see someone do this for Argentina. We've had 27 changes of manager (if we include two who have already announced they're stepping down after next weekend) during 2015. That's just in the Primera, by the way.

[Various Artist]

329 days

jonmid wrote: Well it only took Chesterfield six and a half months to work out that Dean Saunders was shit. They could have asked me and I could have told him he was shit in six and a half minutes.

Without deviation, hesitation or repetition? Impressive.

Sam, wow: is it so bad there that managers are now reduced to pre-announcing their hasty departures? I struggle to imagine the equivalent in the Premier League, where they hang on in grim denial to the bitterest possible end.

[Kevin S]

329 days

If you discounted Karl Robinson, you'd have an odd number, so the median would be an actual manager each time.

[Sam]

329 days

Velvet Human wrote:

Well it only took Chesterfield six and a half months to work out that Dean Saunders was shit. They could have asked me and I could have told him he was shit in six and a half minutes.

Without deviation, hesitation or repetition? Impressive.

Sam, wow: is it so bad there that managers are now reduced to pre-announcing their hasty departures? I struggle to imagine the equivalent in the Premier League, where they hang on in grim denial to the bitterest possible end.

Well it's not really a hasty departure; both men have been in charge for a good while, have done decent jobs and and have been linked with a number of other jobs. They've decided their time is up at his current club, basically.

Plus there are 30 teams in this year's Primera, remember (or, perhaps, find out for the first time), so more jobs to change around in the first place.

[Patrick Thistle]

329 days

I heard Phil Brown say that 75% of managers have one managerial job and then never have another one. It seems a high drop out rate but is perhaps right.

Has anyone worked out how many of the current 92 P&FL managers are in their first managerial job?

[Southport Zeb]

329 days

I reckon there are 13 managers in their first senior managerial job:
Karl Robinson, Dean Smith, Jim Bentley, Neil Ardley, Aitor Karanka, Gary Monk, Rob Page, Adam Murray, Neil Harris, Gary Caldwell, Paul Clement, Teddy Sheringham, David Dunn.

To this list you can probably add Gareth Ainsworth and Lee Carsley, both of whom had two spells as caretaker manager, at QPR and Coventry respectively.

Four other managers are currently in their first job at Football League level, having previously managed in non-league:
Paul Tisdale (Team Bath)
Steve Davis (Northwich Victoria, Nantwich Town)
Wayne Burnett (Fisher Athletic twice, Dulwich Hamlet, Grays Athletic)
Darrell Clarke (Salisbury City)

Oddly, going off the numbers on Wikipedia, the median length of service for this nineteen "inexperienced" managers is 662 days, near enough twice the average service time of Football League managers as a whole.

[ad hoc]

329 days

I can't do this for Romania as I can;t find the stats and start dates for everyone, but I do know that in the top flight there are only four head coaches who started in their current position earlier than this year. The longest serving is Emil Sandoi who has been managing CSU Craiova since 3 Sept 2014. If he sees out this week that will be a whole 15 months!

[Various Artist]

329 days

Sam wrote:

Sam, wow: is it so bad there that managers are now reduced to pre-announcing their hasty departures? I struggle to imagine the equivalent in the Premier League, where they hang on in grim denial to the bitterest possible end.

Well it's not really a hasty departure; both men have been in charge for a good while, have done decent jobs and and have been linked with a number of other jobs. They've decided their time is up at his current club, basically.
Plus there are 30 teams in this year's Primera, remember (or, perhaps, find out for the first time), so more jobs to change around in the first place.

Fair enough. It still feels like a practice you just don't see here: even when managers are linked with other clubs they tend to flatly deny all knowledge until the moment they walk out on their current one. Or maybe I'm being too harsh.
I did know about the ludicrous 30-team Primera from reading other posts of yours months back. I'm not sure I've yet picked my jaw back up off the floor. Are there clubs there agitating for a midseason break after the first 40-odd games??