Worst sacking...

...seeing as the de Boer debate is in full flow, what was the worst sacking ever?

Trying to think of ones where the club collapsed afterwards, whereas the manager went on to bigger and better.

One that recent ones that springs to mind is Derby and Paul Clement. They went on a run with only 1 loss in 19, then a run of 1 win in 7, and so showed him the door. He left them in 5th place in the Championship. He went on to save Swansea, meanwhile Derby floundered with Pearson and McLaren though Gary Rowett seems to have at least improved things.

Skylinehead

I think Wolves were either 1 point inside or outside the relegation zone in March when they sacked Mick McCarthy.

They put Terry Conner in charge, didn't win a game, got relegated.

Unearthly

Del Bosque at Madrid. Think he had 2 CL and 2 titles in 4 seasons. They went trophyless for a while after that.

GavRedKing

You could fill a thread alone with Chelsea managers sacked in the past but for me as a Chelsea fan it was Carlo Ancelotti.

Having won a league and cup double, scored the most amount of goals along the way, couple of 5, 6, 7 and the odd 8 goal thriller, lost out to Inter and Mourinho in the last 16 of the CL in his first year, add in the community shield and it was great season for Chelsea.

Following year, lost the community shield (big deal) lost out on the league to utd in what was basically a decider with 3 games to go, eventually lost the league by 9points finishing 2nd and utd knocked us out of the quarter final of the CL too.

Carlo was sacked a few hours after the last game of the season and Chelsea never fully recovered in the league, despite winning the CL and EL, until Jose came back nearly 4 years after Carlo.

DeanAustin

Chris Hughton at Newcastle is up there.

I'd throw Harry Redknapp and Martin Jol at Spurs into the mix too.

murpho999

Chris Hughton at Newcastle was a ridiculous one.

Harry Palmr

Sam Allardyce at Blackburn Rovers might be one. Actually The Venkys' reign of misrule could fill an entire Guardian 10 worst hirings/sackings feature!

Chris Hughton at Newcastle.

brevity

I'm more than a bit biased but the sacking of Rafa Benitez was hard to take. Especially considering who he was replaced by.

blueser

Curbishley at Charlton. They were regular mid table PL finishers under him, but the club felt he wasn't the man to push them on to a top 6 finish, and gave him the bullet. They never recovered from that.

GavRedKing

Newcastle (22) and Spurs (21) are the only teams with more managers in the PL era than Chelsea.

Although since Roman took over hes managed to employ 14 of the 20 that Chelsea have had in the league, 2 of them (Wilkins and Holland) have taken over for 1 game each either side of Guus Hiddink coming in.

Harry Palmr

blueser wrote: »

Curbishley at Charlton. They were regular mid table PL finishers under him, but the club felt he wasn't the man to push them on to a top 6 finish, and gave him the bullet. They never recovered from that.

Hilarious to look back on that era now, Curbs worked miracles really at what is a middle-weight London club having to compete with so many richer neighbours.

super_furry

brevity wrote: »

I'm more than a bit biased but the sacking of Rafa Benitez was hard to take. Especially considering who he was replaced by.

That's the one that springs to mind for me. A victim of the owners at the time more than anything else.

blueser

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Hilarious to look back on that era now, Curbs worked miracles really at what is a middle-weight London club having to compete with so many richer neighbours.

It was a laughable sacking, even at the time and without the benefit of hindsight. What exactly were the owners expecting for their club?

blueser

blueser wrote: »

It was a laughable sacking, even at the time and without the benefit of hindsight. What exactly were the owners expecting for their club?

They wanted him to stay, he wouldn't agree to extend his contract which only had a year left, so they mutually agreed to end it. It wasn't really a sacking based on results.

Pighead

The sacking of Stephen Kenny from Shamrock Rovers after just nine months in the job was particularly knee jerk. Especially when you look at everything he has achieved since that fateful day.

bobmalooka

Brian Kerr

Berserker

I thought that Bob Bradley's sacking at Swansea was harsh. He never had a chance to bring in his own players and he was treated very poorly by the media.

super_furry

Pighead wrote: »

The sacking of Stephen Kenny from Shamrock Rovers after just nine months in the job was particularly knee jerk. Especially when you look at everything he has achieved since that fateful day.

Awful call by the board and played into the decision to give Crolly far too much time after that, when he was clearly out of his depth.

Agent Coulson

Was Heynckes sacked after winning the Quadruple or was it by mutual consent?

ERG89

Milan sacked Allegri to ask Seedorf to retire in Brazil & come next to Milan to try his hand managing them with no experience.
18 months later Juve were in the Champions League final with Allegri & Milan were sacking Inzaghi who they pushed up from the Primavera side with no experience.

razorblunt

Chris Hughton was the first to spring to mind too.

I agree on Bob Bradley too, not the worst sacking but pretty harsh, the media were all over him like a rash, especially the clowns at Soccer AM who are still flogging their "joke" to death.

blueser

Deleted User wrote: »

They wanted him to stay, he wouldn't agree to extend his contract which only had a year left, so they mutually agreed to end it. It wasn't really a sacking based on results.

My mistake. I'd have argued with anyone that he got the push, but you're right. He effectively "walked".

ricero

razorblunt wrote: »

Chris Hughton was the first to spring to mind too.

I agree on Bob Bradley too, not the worst sacking but pretty harsh, the media were all over him like a rash, especially the clowns at Soccer AM who are still flogging their "joke" to death.

Bob Bradleys treatment reeked of good ol' british xenophobia.

Soccer am a show for idiots, made by idiots

Tom Mann Centuria

ricero wrote: »

Bob Bradleys treatment reeked of good ol' british xenophobia.

Soccer am a show for idiots, made by idiots

"Big Sam" and Jimmy Bullard are their icons which says it all.

Bradley seemed like a decent man, maybe if he'd been more of a prick the British press would have liked him.

Berserker

ricero wrote: »

Bob Bradleys treatment reeked of good ol' british xenophobia.

Soccer am a show for idiots, made by idiots

Soccer AM feel apart once Lovejoy left it. Wouldn't watch it nowadays. Found it funny that the media has such an issue with his Americanisms when they have no issue with some manager from the continent who can't speak a word of English after being in a PL job for months or even a year. Calling it xenophobia is unfair and harsh.

Paz-CCFC

Rico sacked from City about a week after winning the FAI Cup. He had won the league just two seasons previous. The Cup win put him as our most successful manager. He knew he wasn't going to be around for the following season, which makes his performance and professionalism in the run up to and in the final all the more remarkable.

Pighead wrote: »

The sacking of Stephen Kenny from Shamrock Rovers after just nine months in the job was particularly knee jerk. Especially when you look at everything he has achieved since that fateful day.

Even if they did poorly in Europe and were way out of the title race, they were in the cup quarter-final and the League Cup final and still in with a shout of qualifying for the Europa League via the league. Five years and four managers later and that's exactly the position they were in before Friday night. They sacked him just before the two cup matches which came within the space of a week. Under their interim manager, they were beaten in both and ended up not qualifying for Europe.

redzerdrog

Liverpool sacking Rafa and replacing him with Roy ****ing Hodgson

bucketybuck

A crappy little nothing of a club passed out all the megamillions big clubs and won the Premier league. Less than 10 months later they sacked the manager that brought them there.

Its best to expect nothing from modern day football clubs.

Paz-CCFC

Paz-CCFC wrote: »

Rico sacked from City about a week after winning the FAI Cup. He had won the league just two seasons previous. The Cup win put him as our most successful manager...

Oh very true, in fact that was appalling. He gave us so many great great times at the Cross, was very fond of him. For such a class act and a gentleman to be treated in such a classless way was pretty nasty. Mind you, for his own reputation, he was better off getting out before the club became a complete basket case.

Mr.Nice Guy

Benfica's sacking of Bela Guttmann...

The "curse" of Bela Guttmann

After the 1962 European Cup Final, Guttmann approached the Benfica board of directors and asked for a pay rise. However, despite the success he had brought the club, he was turned down. On leaving Benfica, Guttman allegedly cursed the club, declaring, "Not in a hundred years from now will Benfica ever be European champion". Benfica have gone on to lose all eight of their subsequent European finals, including five European Cup finals (1963, 1965, 1968, 1988, and 1990), and three UEFA Cup/UEFA Europa League finals (1983, 2013 and 2014).Before the 1990 final, which was played in Vienna, where Guttmann was buried, Eusebio even prayed at his grave and asked for the curse to be broken.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9la_Guttmann

Edit: Actually I'm wrong, he walked from Benfica over the pay dispute. He was sacked from Milan though while they were top of the league.

Donnielighto

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

Benfica's sacking of Bela Guttmann...



Edit: Actually I'm wrong, he walked from Benfica over the pay dispute. He was sacked from Milan though while they were top of the league.

Look at his record, he was a nutcase.

HalloweenJack

Ones that stick out in my mind are:

Hughton at Newcastle and at Norwich, too. It was a similar situation to Mick McCarthy getting sacked at Wolves.
Ancelotti at Chelsea.
Kombouare at PSG when the Qataris took over. He had them top of the table and replaced him with Ancelotti who lost the title to Montpellier. Now, I'd certainly rate Ancelotti as a far better coach than Kombouare but you feel that he wasn't doing anything wrong when it happened.
Ancelotti at Madrid is another one, as was the infamous del Bosque one.

suffering golfer

Pellegrini by Real Madrid. Just lead them to their highest point total in the league (at that time) of 96 points

suffering golfer

redzerdrog wrote: »

Liverpool sacking Rafa and replacing him with Roy ****ing Hodgson

Meh, Rafa wasn't the worst sacking, team were stale under him and a lot of Liverpool fans wanted him out. Hodgson appointment doesn't make the sacking terrible. Just a terrible appointment (but hey that is hindsight for you!)

GavRedKing

Agent Coulson wrote: »

Was Heynckes sacked after winning the Quadruple or was it by mutual consent?

It was mutual consent but it was basically pushing him out the door to bring in Pep, who never matched his success while at Bayern, IMO.

murpho999

bucketybuck wrote: »

A crappy little nothing of a club passed out all the megamillions big clubs and won the Premier league. Less than 10 months later they sacked the manager that brought them there.

Its best to expect nothing from modern day football clubs.

If he had not been sacked they were heading for relegation so the decision was correct in hindsight.

thebaz

the fickleness of modern football - loose a couple of games and many fans, the media are calling for manager heads - don't like it - the DeBoer one is very bad, as he is a good football man, who was just not given time - 4 games - owners just want that short term bounce that Pullis or someone will usually give, no time given now to create a football culture

PhilipsR

murpho999 wrote: »

If he had not been sacked they were heading for relegation so the decision was correct in hindsight.

Nah man, screw the Leicester fans. Those peasants will never win the league again so because they won the league, they should take whatever they get. Logic.

kfallon

Brian Clough at Leeds

Officer999

For me the de Boer sacking is the worst yet.

He only had two home games, just two!

And of the two away games, Liverpool struggled to break them down and just won 1-0. And the other away game they did everything but score, they were so unlucky on Sunday to be beaten.

It's the worst ever for me

Arghus

blueser wrote: »

Curbishley at Charlton. They were regular mid table PL finishers under him, but the club felt he wasn't the man to push them on to a top 6 finish, and gave him the bullet. They never recovered from that.

Curbishly wasn't sacked though - at least that's how I remember it. He walked at the end of his contract, he may have been encouraged to, but that's not being sacked.

kfallon

kfallon wrote: »

Brian Clough at Leeds

Spent an absolute fortune, alienated the league winning squad, left them one place above relegation. Later conceded that he got it all wrong. The mistake was probably that he didn't have Peter Taylor with him to placate the players.

marklazarcovic

claudio ranieri.leicester

Birmingham sack Redknapp.

Which reminded me of their sacking Gary Rowett. Took them from relegation places to consecutive 10th place finishes in the Championship, sacked when they were lying 7th, his successor Zola had 2 wins in 24 games...

BOHtox

bobmalooka wrote: »

Brian Kerr

From Ireland? I disagree entirely and I absolutely love Brian Kerr but that Ireland team underperformed loads.

Firstly, it had Keane, Duff, Given, O'Shea, Carr, Finnan, Holland, Morrison, Harte, Kelly, Cunningham, Kinsella etc all at their peaks playing in the Premiership for very good clubs.

I know we had lost our first two matches (To Russia and Switzerland) when he took over for the Euro qualifiers but in the reverse fixtures he only fared one point better. We also only managed a draw away to Albania which is undoubtedly a tough place to go but with the team we had we really should have qualified for that Euros.

Not the end of the world we didn't qualify we go again.
Two very big mistakes both against Israel in that we go ahead and then sit back instead of going on to kill the game. It happened out there when we invited pressure and then in the return leg in Dublin we go 2 nil up, Robbie Keane goes off injured and he brings on centre defensive mid Graham Kavanagh and we completely lose our shape and before half time it's 2 all. We finish 4th in that group a point off 2nd.

By all means not an absolutely disastrous tenure but we really should have qualified for one if not both of those competitions considering the players we had.

What followed with Staunton was a joke but I've no real qualms about Kerr, who I think is a great pundit and has a great footballing head, getting the sack.

Blazer

redzerdrog wrote: »

Liverpool sacking Rafa and replacing him with Roy ****ing Hodgson

Happiest day of my life

BOHtox

BOHtox wrote: »

From Ireland? I disagree entirely and I absolutely love Brian Kerr but that Ireland team underperformed loads.

Like you I like Kerr a lot, but it was not a successful period. He also had Roy Keane playing, but some very poor outings. He deserved his chance, but it was disappointing.

He also wasn't sacked, the FAI didn't renew his contract when it ended.

BOHtox

Deleted User wrote: »

Like you I like Kerr a lot, but it was not a successful period. He also had Roy Keane playing, but some very poor outings. He deserved his chance, but it was disappointing.

He also wasn't sacked, the FAI didn't renew his contract when it ended.

Exactly. I'm glad it ended relatively amicably too at the end of his contract. There wasn't a big fallout mid-campaign. He loved managing Ireland. He's from my neck of the woods and I'd often see him going on a jog in Tymon Park, he'd see a game of football on one of the pitches and stay and watch it for a bit. We were just kids at the time and he'd stay and look just to break up his jog. The man lives and breaths football.