Manchester United’s biggest problem is not selecting next manager

Interesting piece in the FT on Moyes’ sacking, pointing out the remarkably short lifespan of Premier League managers:

Image has become all the more important for managers in England since 1992, when Sky TV began showing live matches almost daily – something unprecedented in English football. Driven by Sky, newspapers expanded their coverage of the game. Press conferences began to attract hordes of journalists. Because British players traditionally don’t speak in public, the manager became the club’s face and voice. When results were bad, he was sacked. Today, the manager is football’s version of the Aztecan human sacrifice. Prof Szymanski and Thomas Peeters, of Antwerp University, have shown that median tenure for managers in England’s top division has dropped from 1,233 days in the 1970s to just 497 days in the past two decades.

Worth reading in full – “Manchester United’s biggest problem is not selecting next manager”.