Which Championship chairman will push the panic button next?

Below is the first of many guest posts, over the coming months from professional sports writer Philip Oliver of football betting, happy reading.

After a slow start, the Championship managerial merry-go-round is starting to crank up. Iain Dowie became the first boss to depart, on 24th October, long after the other league divisions first saw a managerial change, and even that sacking was more due to board level manoeuvrings than team-underperformance.

However, any sense that Championship chairmen were showing a new level of patience gradually eroded. Aidy Boothroyd, Alan Pardew, Colin Calderwood and Paul Jewell have all jumped or been pushed out of struggling clubs in the last couple of months.

With Simon Grayson leaving Blackpool to take up the Leeds United post, five of the bottom eight clubs have been looking for new bosses. The season is past halfway and the managers of any other clubs facing the prospect of a relegation battle will start 2009 nervously.

Sean O’Driscoll is perhaps safe after helping Doncaster Rovers fight above their weight, which leaves Norwich City’s Glenn Roeder and Saints’ Jan Poortvliet as the most precariously placed bosses in the bottom eight.

Both managers might benefit from lowered expectations at clubs recently aiming for Premier League returns.

Roeder is still in credit at Carrow Road after obtaining survival last term when relegation seemed certain under Peter Grant’s stewardship and Poortvliet was always likely to be faced with a relegation dogfight after taking over a team that avoided the drop on the last day of the 2007/08 season.

With money tight and Premier League clubs again circling in the hope of picking up a Saints bargain, survival must be considered a success for the Dutchman in his first season.

Despite being the club’s 10th manager in as many years, Poortvliet looks set to be given time to help shape the club’s future, especially considering his problematic recruitment in the summer from Helmond Sport.

Paul Ince, Nigel Clough and Alan Curbishley are names likely to join the above list as potential targets, but it appears that the Saints will not be taking a ride on the merry-go-round just yet.


Written by Philip Oliver, a professional sports writer who blogs about football betting