Nathan Jones’ job at Southampton is hanging by a thread amid pleas from Saints fans for him to go, but he’s hardly the first manager to cling on to his job. These guys all stuck around longer than they should have…
Avram Grant (West Ham)
West Ham waited at least half a season too long to sack Grant. By the time they did, in May 2011, they were bottom of the table and bound for the Championship.
Grant got the job on the back of finishing bottom the season before, though Portsmouth’s ownership shambles offered the former Chelsea boss just enough mitigation. The writing was on the wall, however, when the Hammers got off to their worst-ever start in the Premier League. By the time they finally earned their first point – five games in at Stoke – Grant wasn’t even in attendance, missing the game for Yom Kippur.
By mid-December, when only one more win had been achieved, Grant was reportedly issued with an ultimatum: win one of the next three games or face the sack. Luckily for the manager, Fulham rolled over to have their bellies tickled on Boxing Day. Even more fortunately for the other relegation contenders, Grant was safe.
The Hammers reportedly approached Martin O’Neill in mid-January to step in with the club bottom of the table, but O’Neill backed off. Rather than look elsewhere, Davids Gold and Sullivan allowed their dead man walking to stumble on to the end of the season.
One point from the club’s final eight games condemned West Ham to the second tier. Four months too late, Grant was sacked immediately after the 3-2 defeat at Wigan which confirmed their relegation. Meanwhile, a plane flew above Lancashire declaring: ‘AVRAM GRANT – MILLWALL LEGEND’.
David Moyes (Manchester United)
Speaking of planes and banners… it was quite clear very quickly to anyone with eyes that ‘The Chosen One’ was out of his depth at Old Trafford. As Sir Alex Ferguson later said, Moyes was not left with “11 corpses at a funeral”, rather the squad that coasted to the Premier League title the year before.
Long before he got the bullet, stories were emerging from Carrington of the players’ unhappiness under the man who’d never won a pot as a manager. The players should certainly take their share of the blame, but Moyes was the wrong one from the off.
United made what was then their worst-ever start to a Premier League season, thanks in part to a shambolic transfer window. Not entirely Moyes’ fault, that. But spluffing £27million on…
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