Maresca, Amorim and when managers realise they are coaches
Nine causes for coaches on the edge
English football used to pride itself on managers being given time, unlike those fickle Italians, who changed coaches at a whim, or so ran the old narrative. Now English football revels in turnover. The managerial merry-go-round adds to the drama of the Premier League soap opera, and many enjoy the rapidly changing plot-lines. It’s great for ratings and provides endless back pages for old media and great content for the voracious new media.
The weekend’s Premier League fixtures provided a snapshot of volatility. Three of the bottom four, Nottingham Forest, West Ham United and Wolverhampton Wanderers, have a crazy record of managerial churn. Forest’s last four visits to Aston Villa were led by Steve Cooper (2023), Nuno Espirito Santo (2024 and 2025) and Sean Dyche (2026).
West Ham’s last three trips to Molineux were led by David Moyes (2024), Graham Potter (2025) and Nuno (2026). West Ham’s woes deepened with a 3-0 loss to Wolves on Saturday. Nuno’s side host Dyche’s Forest tonight. Defeat would push Nuno closer to the exit. A Venn diagram of clubs’ changes would feature a lot of Nuno.
Nuno spent four years at Molineux. He was the first of six different Wolves coaches who have overseen the Wolves-West Ham fixture in the last five years: Nuno (2021), Bruno Lage (2021), Julen Lopetegui (2023), Gary O’Neil (2024), Vitor Pereira (2025) and now Rob Edwards (2026). It’s been a revolving door at Molineux.
Teams closer to the top, fifth-placed Chelsea and Manchester United in sixth, have hardly been calmer. Chelsea’s last five trips to the Etihad have been led by five different people: Thomas Tuchel (2022), Frank Lampard (2023), Mauricio Pochettino (2024), Enzo Maresca (2025) and interim Calum McFarlane (2026).
The churn at United is reflected in four different coaches on their last four visits to Elland Road as mentioned last week: Ole Gunnar Solskjaer (2021), Ralf Rangnick (2022) Erik ten Hag (2023) and Ruben Amorim (2026). The fifth? Answers on an email to Ineos. Oliver Glasner?
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Managers used to be for life, now they are not even for Christmas. What’s changed? Nine reasons…(feel free to add your own)
1. The new wave of sporting directors seeking to control recruitment was a development always going to lead to tensions with managers now relegated to head coaches. See recent events at Chelsea and Manchester United. Enzo Maresca and Ruben Amorim left partly because of disagreements over recruitment. Some of those in the dug-out can be forgiven for looking at their directors of football and legitimately ask whether they have the right or expertise to run the football side and, effectively, pick the players then imposed on the coach?
There were disagreements between Maresca, a former Juventus player, and Chelsea’s assorted footballing execs like Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart and also the hands-on co-owner Behdad Egbali. There was a disagreement over tactics between Amorim and United’s director of football Jason Wilcox. Nuno had issues with Edu at Forest, and then unwisely spoke out about the owner, Evangelos Marinakis. It’s never good to challenge your bosses.
And who appoints the sporting directors? Does the owner have the experience or expertise to make the right choice? Was Wolves’ director of professional football Domenico Teti any good? He lasted only five months. How on earth did he get the job. Simply somebody Pereira knew? Appointments have to be more sophisticated.