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# Stop sacking managers in October
- URL: https://pitch.ghostcms.templates.codememory.com/stop-sacking-managers-in-october/
- Published: 2026-06-26T17:30:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-06-26T17:30:00.000Z
- Description: A bad October is information, not a verdict. The clubs that keep their nerve are the ones that build.
- Author: Callum Reid
- Tags: Opinion, #Import 2026-10-02 15:58

Last season, five Northern League clubs sacked their managers before Christmas. Two did it in October, after eight or nine games. As a new season starts, here is a request to every board: do not do it again. It is too early, and the evidence says so.

![An empty dugout. Clubs change managers faster every season, and rarely improve.](https://pitch.ghostcms.templates.codememory.com/content/images/2026/10/sack-empty-1.jpg)

An empty dugout. Clubs change managers faster every season, and rarely improve.

Football clubs sack managers because it feels like doing something. The fans are angry, the board is nervous, and a new face buys a few weeks of hope. Sometimes it works. Usually, it does not.

Studies of managerial changes across many leagues show the same pattern. Teams that sack their manager after a bad run often improve in the following weeks. But teams that keep their manager after a similar bad run improve by about the same amount. The bad run was partly bad luck, and luck tends to even out. The new manager gets the credit for a bounce that would have happened anyway.

Meanwhile, the club pays twice: compensation for the old manager, a salary for the new one. At our level, that money could have bought a striker.

> A bad October is information. It is not yet a verdict.  
>  
> **Callum Reid**

![The boardroom: where most sackings are decided, usually on a Monday.](https://pitch.ghostcms.templates.codememory.com/content/images/2026/10/sack-board-1.jpg)

The boardroom: where most sackings are decided, usually on a Monday.

There is another cost. A new manager usually wants new players. A club that changes managers every eighteen months ends up with a squad built by three different people with three different ideas. That is how clubs drift into the bottom half and stay there.

Look at the clubs that do well over many years in this league. Kingsbridge have had the same manager for seven years. Rovers for five. They have had bad Octobers too. Their boards held their nerve, and their managers built something.

What should a board do instead? First, agree with the manager before the season what success looks like: a position, a style, a number of young players given a chance. Then judge against that, not against the last three results. Second, look at the underlying numbers. Shots for and against, chances created and chances given away tell you more about a team's future than the table in October.

Third, talk to the players. If they still believe in the manager and the plan, a bad run is just a bad run. If they have stopped listening, that is different, and no amount of patience will fix it.

So my request to boards is simple. Do not judge a manager before Christmas unless something is badly wrong off the pitch. Look at the performances, not only the results. Ask whether the team is creating chances and stopping them. If it is, the results will come. If you sack the manager now, you will never find out.