This of course, protects the board, who have been having quite a cushy lifetime sitting in the best seats and occasionally blaming the manager. Indeed, apart from sacking and appointing, they don’t have much to do. They get free tickets, free transport, free lunches, free booze – and for doing what? Appointing a manager, sacking him and appointing thee next one.
Third, we have the fact that sacking a board member is quite a difficult affair, not least because anyone seen doing it will be seen as a dubious person himself, and so will as likely as not be the next person blamed when something goes wrong.
Fourth, most directors of clubs really don’t know much about football; they are there because they put money in the club, or their fathers were there, or a director of another local firm owes them a favour. They are not directors because they know about football.
Of course, in regard to this and quite a few other issues, Arsenal are different, because Arsenal are owned by a family that owns lots of sports clubs, and so they have got a bit of an idea of what is going on, and have learned that far from sorting things out when things are not right, sacking the manager usually makes this worse. It can work (as with Arteta’s predecessor) but when it does the owner is still to blame for appointing the wrong guy the last time around.
But this points to another major problem – there are not that many really good managers and those that are around don’t guarantee instant success, even when they have access to vast transfer funds. So when the board is faced with a bunch of wannabe managers each telling a tale of what is wrong with this club, the board often haven’t got a clue who to appoint. So they pick one because he did ok at his last club. And if they get the wrong one, well, it’s not going to be their job on the line.
As for the sacked managers, they go to the next club and report that they were sacked because the board couldn’t listen to the truth about the state of the club and the need for a massive clear-out.
Each sacked manager leaves with a pay-off – which means less transfer money available for the next man. So it goes on. We’re lucky there was only one Emery and only one Rioch.