Friday Freebie: How long should a manager get before a change is needed?

Time runs out quickly for some, it's overplayed for others

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What’s your marker for when the time is right for a change in management? Five games? Ten games? A quarter or half the season? Everyone’s going to have a different opinion here, some won’t even have the five games in mind!

Whilst there have been a few departures this week, it’s not been uncommon since the season began but is patience in short supply both in the boardroom and on the terraces?

Going back quite a few years I’m pretty sure ten games in was the time a change was looked at or being made, 30 points on offer and a fair way behind already I think was just cause.

Seeing managers lose their jobs after much fewer games makes you wonder why the chairman/woman didn’t make the change in the summer. Granted it can be a hindsight move but having entrusted them with either a budget to fill or money to spend it’s literally been wasted with the season in its infancy.

There has been talk of bringing in a transfer window for managers similar to player movement, whilst a decent idea in thought I believe it has too many complications for it to be able to work in a sensible way.

What if there are extenuatingcircumstances, like a top drawer goalkeeper missing the start of the season or the 20 goal striker pulling up a few minutes and then missing the next five games, key players getting injured during games and changing the course of the play ending in defeat.

You can’t plan for those things, but they can be the difference at times between staying in a job or leaving with your P45 the following morning. However, leaving one job is never bad, there is likely to be another opening to apply for in the near future.

It must be the only industry where performing badly has no bearing on getting another job and no worry if that one turns out disastrously either. Not to mention if it’s been a nice juicy contract signed at the beginning, rewarded nicely for failure.

I do feel some clubs are desperate to make up for the last few years where season’s didn’t get completed and I can understand the impatience in wanting to do so, but changing the manager isn’t always going to push it on any further. In most non-league divisions only two or three clubs get promoted, the same for relegation, the rest stuck in the middle needing to wait another season for a push.

Back to the point in hand, when you flip to the other end of the season we’ve seen managers sacked with a few games to go, the boardroom not convinced he’s the right man for the play-off’s despite having led them to the brink after 38 games, how that makes sense I’ll never know!

I still feel you need to give a reasonable length of time for things to work although granted it’s not my money going into a club so I guess they have the right to make a change whenever they want.

So when is the right time? Is there one? Do you have a set number of games in mind? Let me know in the comments below.