The Premier League needs to address the recklessness of the managerial roundabout

There’s a serious issue that the Premier League needs to address and it’s the recklessness of the managerial roundabout and the effect it’s having on the game.

Now, where the blame lies is difficult. On one hand, various mid-table to lower-end Premier League clubs hire the same managers as if they all have something on the associated chairmen, but at the same time, the FA has to step in to stop this complete and utter farce.

The chief suspects are well-known: Alan Pardew, Mark Hughes, Sam Allardyce, David Moyes and Roy Hodgson. I fancy Tony Pulis will eventually get sucked into this vortex of mediocrity, too. But for what?

Well, it’s tricky to blame any manager for taking a job that will pay him millions either way, when you consider what happens to managers who give clubs the cold shoulder.

We haven’t seen or heard from Alan Curbishley in a decade, but we’re fairly sure he’s frozen himself in time so he can once again reign supreme after the apocalypse.

However, they know they’re wasting everyone’s time. They take a job, perform to a reasonable level, get sacked and then re-hired by someone else to do the same job, only for the inevitable to transpire.

There’s only so many times you can lay out your long-term plans in introductory press conferences with all the clichés about owners having foresight before it becomes boring. The only solution for this is FA legislation to be introduced on managerial contracts.

Make them all one-year-deals and ensure clubs can’t sack a manager until season’s end – with a window to extend the contract in the month of January. It would get rid of this perceived nonsense of ‘losing the dressing room’. Everyone and their mother knows that players stop trying for certain managers because they know they can get them sacked. This would go a certain way to removing that issue, or at least diluting it.

It would also ensure that managers can achieve their long-term plans somewhat. While most gaffers are always aware of an axe swinging, they can relax to a degree in the knowledge that if a club wants them, they have to commit within a certain timeframe. One other issue it would fix is managers going to clubs for pathetic pay days without any intent of staying with that club long-term.

Managerial ideologies should be what separates your Simeones from your Guardiolas. Until a manager is given time in a certain environment, we’ll never know what they’re truly about and that’s not fair on anyone.

Managers will be quick to point fingers at owners for their relentless need to sack managers because it’s significantly less of a pay-off than dishing out for a top player but in reality, if managers had some self-respect, they’d not go to work for owners who this track record in the first place.

The aptly-named managerial merry-go-round is in full swing and we’re all victims in watching it play out of control. It’s time for the FA to grow a pair and put sanctions on this or young managers will never get a chance to justify their expense in obtaining UEFA Pro licenses.