With not long to go until the Premier League starts up, some clever pundits have already started to hedge their bets on which team managers will lose their job as a result of their performance in 2014/15 Premier League season.
According to William Hill the current bookies favourite to get the sack first is Alan Irvine, the new Manager of West Brom. He is already standing with odds of 4:1 in favour of his departure at the end of the season.
Having only held the job since June after departing from Everton, he recently made the mistake of publicly admitting he’s never seen the team’s latest addition Brown Ideye play before he splashed out €12.5 million of the clubs budget on the Nigerian striker.
With the dismal performance by West Brom through the 2013-14 football season still fresh in our memories; Irvine is certainly going to have to work hard to avoid becoming the third coach to be sacked by the club in the last 12 months.
Another favourite is Harry Redknapp; the QPR Manager is currently looking at odds of 11:2 in favour of his dismissal. Despite Redknapp leading QPR to promotion via the play-offs, Malaysian entrepreneur Tony Fernandeshas stumped up a substantial investment in the club this season, so Redknapp’s going to have to work very hard to avoid the chop.
Then there’s Alan Pardew and Paul Lambert, who both have odds of 13:2 in favour of their dismissal so there’s an equal chance of them both being introduced to their respective clubs’ ‘EXIT’ door.
Pardew has had a busy season at St James Park and is touted to lead Newcastle FC back to within the grasps of European Football thanks to his close relationship with Club Chairman Mike Ashley. However, if the team struggles to gain ground Pardew might find his relationship with his boss becoming strained.
Meanwhile Lambert faces another boss coming in with Aston Villa being put up for sale after American owner Randy Lerner decided the club was on the road to nowhere.
If you’re looking to bet on the most reliable horse in this race then you may want to put your money on Sam Allardyce. With odds of 7:1, the former Bolton Wanderers manager may have the animosity of the fans in his favour but unfortunately for him West Ham has had possibly the club’s most terrible pre-season to date. The club was defeated twice whilst touring New Zealand despite both opposing teams being inferior. Plus with striker Andy Carroll out for the next four months due to a knee injury, he might find himself out of a job come December.
And we can’t forget new Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino who comes in at 20:1, but who faces the wrath of trigger-happy Daniel Levy in the boardroom, should he make any managerial errors.
With so much on the line to lose some of these managers might decide that maybe it’s better to play online Bingo instead of getting stressed out from managing a team.
Although we can’t say for sure who will stay and who will go, the 2014/15 campaign is certainly going to be interesting.
