Jose Mourinho was unceremoniously sacked by Tottenham Hotspur on Monday and many believe that he will not manage another Premier League club in the future. Mourinho has won three Premier League titles with Chelsea but his reputation has gradually declined over the years. Wayne Rooney claimed that is it crazy to sack a manager a week before the League Cup final and many have echoed his opinion. In this article, we will look at five popular managers who got sacked before the end of the Premier League season.
#5 Andre Villas-Boas
Villas-Boas arrived in North London with a lot of hype as Chelsea had paid a world-record fee of 15 million euros to Porto FC as compensation. However, things did not go to plan as the Blues failed to adapt to their manager’s ideas and often looked wasteful on the pitch.
Chelsea were still in the top four battle but a Champions League R-16 match against Napoli was the beginning of Boas’ fall. He left out seniors Lampard, Essien and Cole, thus stirring a controversy. He was sacked a month later and was replaced by his assistant Roberto di Matteo.
#4 Unai Emery
Emotions ran high at the Emirates during the fag end of the 2017-18 season as Arsene Wenger departed the club after 22 years in charge. Unai Emery was hired by Kroenka from PSG to revitalize Arsenal and take them back to the Champions League. In his first season at Arsenal, Emery fell short of Champions League success but the hierarchy trusted him to improve things the next season. However, he was sacked mid-season with Arsenal struggling to find its way into the top six.
#3 Brendan Rodgers
Rodgers has been doing an outstanding job at Leicester City for the past two years but his Liverpool stint did not end well. In his second season in charge of Liverpool, Rodgers got them so close to the title. His team also played an attacking brand of football and scored over a hundred goals.
But things changed the next season as Liverpool failed to maintain their intensity and Rodgers was sacked and replaced by Jurgen Klopp. Rodgers played a big part in making LFC a considerable threat for the title after years of languishing below the league’s elite teams.
#2 Claudio Ranieri
Ranieri was part of a footballing miracle in 2016 as Leicester City defied all odds to win the Premier League. That team and their victories that season still gives an enormous amount of joy for the neutrals but things fell apart in 2017-18. Ranieri’s defensive tactics was slowly getting exposed and Leicester soon found themselves in a relegation battle.
He was finally sacked in February 2018 and Craig Shakespeare was appointed on an interim basis. Ranieri is now managing Sampdoria and is currently the manager with the largest coaching experience in Europe.
#1 Jose Mourinho
The man who changed the Premier League by bringing in the 4-3-3 formation has also been sacked thrice in the PL. During his second stint with Chelsea, Jose Mourinho won the title in 2014-5 but he was sacked in October 2015 after things went horribly wrong. Manchester United sacked him in his third season after a defeat to Liverpool at Anfield.
This season we saw glimpses of the ‘special one’ at the beginning when Spurs looked like genuine title contenders. However, defensive lapses throughout the season proved to be the final nail in the coffin for Jose Mourinho.
