Wolves and Southampton have both decided to sack their managers after poor starts to the season, but will a change at the top be enough to save them?
Rarely do two Premier League sackings come along in such quick succession.
Even rarer still is it the case that two managers are sacked so soon after one another and there is more or less universal agreement that making a change was the right decision in both cases.
But with Southampton bottom and Wolverhampton Wanderers one place above them, nine and five points adrift of safety, respectively, desperately disappointing home defeats this weekend were the final nails in the coffin for both Russell Martin and Gary O’Neil.
Wolves’ 2-1 loss to Ipswich – the team with whom they were level on points going into the weekend – was their fourth consecutive loss in a run that has seen them beaten by three of the current bottom seven.
They were minutes from earning a draw, only for Jack Taylor to win it at the death, but in truth a point at home against a promoted side and a direct rival in the relegation battle probably wouldn’t have been enough to save O’Neil anyway.
Wolves, who have reportedly agreed a deal to appoint former Porto and Fenerbahce boss Vitor Pereira as their new manager, have now conceded 40 goals in just 16 games, shipping at least two goals in 13 of those matches and winning only twice all season. Their 4-1 triumph at Fulham last month looks increasingly like a complete anomaly in their campaign, particularly given they have since lost four games on the bounce. The way Matheus Cunha and Rayan Aït-Nouri, the latter of whom was sent off, exploded at the final whistle on Saturday was illustrative of the stress and strain the players are feeling.
The next day, Martin was removed in rather different circumstances, as Southampton’s board reacted to a 5-0 annihilation at the hands of Tottenham.
This felt different to what had happened at Wolves in part because there was so little fight from the Southampton players. There was no chance of anyone getting sent off because they looked like they had all given up hope.
Southampton 0-5 Tottenham xg race
Southampton have picked up just five points from their 16 Premier League matches this season, with Sheffield United in 2020-21 the only team to have won fewer points at this stage of a campaign in Premier League history (two points). Unsurprisingly, Sheffield United were relegated that year, finishing 16 points off safety and going down without a fight.
Saints have won only one league game all season and have scored just 11 goals. Their goal difference of -25 is the fifth-worst recorded by any team in Premier League history after 16 games.
In order to reach the magic 40-point mark, Southampton would have to earn 1.6 points per game for the rest of the season, having so far averaged 0.3 points per game. Even to reach 30 points, they’d need an average of more than 1.1 points per game, which still feels pretty unrealistic for a team who have made a historically poor start after returning to the top flight.
So, can a change of manager inspire an improvement great enough for Wolves or Southampton to escape trouble? What can we learn from past teams who have been in similar situations, and what about those who also chose to give their manager the boot?
In the history of English top-flight men’s football, there have been 52 instances of a team having nine or fewer points after 16 top-flight games (based on three points for a win). Of those, three-quarters were relegated (39 of 52).
Eight of the 13 who survived did so back when teams only got two points for a win. That meant draws were more valuable (a draw was worth 50% of a win, rather than 33.3% of one), and so it was easier to draw your way out of trouble.
When two points were awarded for a win, 30.8% of teams to have started the season as badly as Wolves now have went on to escape the drop. After the rules were changed to award three points for a win, the survival rate dropped to 19.2%.
These days, to turn your fortunes around, you are more likely to need to start winning games – and that’s something that neither Wolves nor Southampton have done very much this season.
Focusing just on the Premier League era, four of 21 teams (19.0%) have stayed up after getting nine points or fewer from their first 16 games. Each of Coventry in 1995-96, Wigan in 2007-08, Sunderland in 2013-14, and Southampton in 2018-19 had exactly nine points at this stage of the season, and went on to finish 16th or higher.
The upshot is that it is unsurprisingly very difficult to escape relegation if you make as bad a start to the season as Wolves and Southampton have in 2024-25. Crucially, though, four teams have recovered from having Wolves’ current points tally after 16 games; nobody has done so after making as poor a start as Southampton.
Premier League Relegation Chances 16 December
So, will changing their manager help?
In the Premier League era, 91 teams have changed manager when they were in the relegation zone. Of those, 36 teams ended up surviving (39.6%), meaning more than 60% were relegated.
But plenty of those changes were made earlier in the season than Wolves and Southampton have this season, and the survival rate drops significantly when a team was in the relegation zone later than 16 games into the season. Of the 45 teams who have changed their manager when in the relegation zone after 16 or more games, only nine have survived (20%). Concerningly for Southampton, none of those to avoid the drop were bottom of the league when bringing in a new manager.
So, what about teams in situations specifically like those Wolves and Southampton find themselves?
In the Premier League era, seven teams changed manager with the team on nine points or fewer after 16 games and when in the relegation zone. Not one of them went on to survive.
None of those seven teams even finished higher than 19th place. Five finished at least 10 points adrift of safety, and only one – Sheffield Wednesday in 1999-2000 – managed to finish within five points of safety.
In other words, for the new manager of either Wolves or Southampton to successfully steer them clear of relegation this season, they’ll have to do something that’s never been done before.
It’s obviously not mathematically impossible for either side to survive, and as long as that’s the case there will always be some hope, but history suggests they are both very much up against it.
Wolves’ total of nine points gives them a greater glimmer of hope than Southampton, for whom things look incredibly bleak, but Wolves’ survival chances appear to still be quite slim. Even a new manager might find this too big a mountain to climb.
Opta Stats Hub Premier League
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