8 Football Managers who have been sacked the most times in history

Football management is undoubtedly one of the most challenging careers in the whole world of sports. Today, you are the next great strategic mastermind on the touchline, and the next day, you find yourself packing your things from the office because your team has once again failed to deliver. Modern Football has become a high-stakes arena, the new time frame is measured in milliseconds and the newer money is in millions of dollars and thus a manager’s tenure has become more volatile than ever before. And some of the more respected names of Football’s management team have gone through the dreaded severance several times in their successful career.

The world of football management has its list of interesting repeaters – experienced managers who are fired and rehired themselves time and time again. These managers equipped with tactical knowledge and experience are such specialized talons that have merely mastered the art of looking for a new pastorate in other clubs and most cases in other countries. These are not failure stories alone, but tales of resilience, innovations, and sheer love for the game that will always see them go back repeatedly depending on how many times the football associations have let them out of the door. Let’s take a look at the list of most sacked football managers in history:

Selection Criteria

Poor Performance and Results: Managers with persistent losses or declining league positions are prioritized, as clubs often act quickly to minimize further damage.

Frequency of Dismissals: The total number of times a manager has been dismissed from roles across different teams, indicating career volatility and susceptibility to changes.

Also Read: Top 10 Chelsea Managers With Most Win in the Club History

List of 8 Football Managers Sacked the Most Times

8. Mark Hughes- 5 Times

Mark Hughes has now come full circle of managing Premier League clubs starting with Manchester City and ending with Southampton. Hughes favoured a 4-2-3-1 formation which gives attention to the right defensive organization but also offers free attacking players. Tactically he has been very flexible but at the same time has a set of principles that he has never strayed too far away from – organization and structure in particular a structured soccer.

During his managerial tenures at various clubs like Manchester City, Queens Park Rangers, Stoke City, Southampton, and Bradford City, he had his worst terms as a manager with QPR and Southampton where he had less than 1 point per game. With Bradford City being the most recent club sacking him in 2023 making him one of the most sacked football managers.

7. Pepe Mel- 5 Times

Pepe Mel’s career offers a glimpse into the challenges of implementing a possession-based style across diverse leagues. His stint in La Liga and his brief time with West Bromwich Albion in the English Premier League illustrate the difficulty of bringing a high-possession, high-press approach to faster-paced, counter-attacking environments. The tactical shifts he attempted at West Brom were incompatible with the league’s style, making it tough for his team to secure wins or even draws.

Mel’s football playing style entails possession games, high pressing, and a formation of 4-2-3-1 most of the time. His teams played aggressively defending and stressed the buildup from the backend of the field but this played poorly down with the fighting strategies of relegation struggles. In his managerial career, he has been sacked 5 times from clubs Polideportivo Ejido, Rayo Vallecano, West Bromwich Alban, Real Betis, and Deportivo de La Coruna.

6. Sam Allardyce- 5 Times

Sam Allardyce, is one of the oldest and most experienced managers in the football world right now with over 30 years of managing several top English clubs. Allardyce’s style of play is very basic; it involves a modern touch brought in with the English tough-tackling style of play. However, despite all his experience, he was sacked 5 times by clubs like West Bromwich Albam, Blackpool, Newcastle, Blackburn, and West Ham, making him one of the most sacked football managers in the English Premier League.

His teams usually use a rather rigid formation – the direct 4-5-1 system; they rely on set pieces so, the main strength is in the defence while the main weakness is in the attack. He rightly introduced the mean paradise of process integration in English football while most often prevailing for the rather mean goal of football.

5. Roy Hodgson- 5 Times

The man synonymous with the English Football team has been dismissed with grace while retaining his status as an encourager of positive change. His long career in various countries has been one of the key factors that have seen him successfully manage and promote stability to unstable teams through the careful formulation of organizational structures and clear concepts and spelling out tactical formations.

Hodgson has established his tactics which major in defence formation. His favourite formation, 4-4-2, is the formation with compact knots of people both in the defence and purposeful actions in the attack. His training concepts most of which are associated with what came to be known as the Hodgson drill has helped shape coaching education in Europe. Although he is one of the most sacked football managers in Europe but has also provided stability to many clubs during his managerial tenure.

Also Read: 15 Chelsea Managers from the Abramovich Era to Present Day

4. Jose Mourinho- 5 Times

Jose Mourinho has a special nicknamed the “Special One” by fans during his time at Chelsea, the era where he witnessed success and even failures in the form of sackings. His affiliations with Chelsea, Manchester United, Tottenham, and Real Madrid are hugely characterized by the processes of triumph and exit. However, there are a few questions, how much does his tactical impact on modern football now eliminate him at all?

Mourinho has also transformed from the defensive-minded manager he started his career as to a much more tactical one. The Portuguese apply tactical and pressuring formation, fast pitch changes, and well-orchestrated disciplining formation. He established the 4-3-3 system that brought a higher standard to the English Premiership, while the flexibility this team applied at Inter Milan brought them UEFA Champions League glory. Although he is one of the most sacked football managers in history, he is also considered one of the best tactical managers in the world.

3. Steve McClaren- 6 Times

Many ups and downs of the football manager can be described by McClaren’s career, starting with disappointment in the English football national team and culminating in the Eredivisie title with FC Twente. His dismissals at Newcastle United and Derby County as well as other teams have been balanced by successful reigns and the efficiency of changing style of play. He is in third position on our list of most sacked football managers.

McClaren’s strategic formation includes the English tough style and the European fancy tricks. His teams primarily use this formation, four defenders, two midfielders, three forwards, and one sweeper, and mainly play broad and fast. At FC Twente, he proved how he could cope with the different football cultures, and changing to a technical style of football brought him some luck.

2. Carlo Ancelotti- 6 Times

Carlo Ancelotti, one of the most successful football managers ever, has had his fair share of sacking while tenure at AC Milan, Chelsea, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, etc are invaluable experiences for him. The capacity to work with the superstars and to set and apply top-notch tactical concepts is probably what distinguishes the man. He has won much silverware in his managerial tenures with Europe’s top clubs but has tasted despair of being sacked 6 times in his career placing him in the 2nd position in the list of most sacked football managers in history.

The philosophy of Ancelotti is flexibility and the freedom of a player to express themselves. Inherent in his preferred 4-3-3 formation is the proclivity for the team to shift between numerous formations during the course of a match in search of the winning goal, The team strives to display technical ability and positional exchange. Unlike other current managers, he tries to implement the system into his players and not vice versa, and that is why his ideas work in any league and in different countries.

1. Claudio Ranieri- 10 Times

The “Tinkerman” is the best example of the strong impact of a manager in today’s football. He took his journey across Europe’s most renowned clubs, beginning with Chelsea and comprising giants like Juventus, and AS Roma, and then coming to Leicester City, where he authored arguably one of the most sensational outside-field stories in the glorious history of fools. The ability to tinker with formations has remained one of Ranieri’s virtues and vices. He tops the list of most sacked football managers in history, he has been sacked 10 times in his managerial career.

The way he went about playing changed from time to time during his career. It was at Chelsea he brought a system of rotation that earned him the sobriquet of special one. Puel will continue developing the counter-attacking football that made him Leicester City’s hero having promoted the team which was under serious relegation danger to Premier League champions through a 4-4-2 formation. Whereas everyone has their favorite formation or style of management, the great thing about Ranieri is that he changes tact according to his players and circumstances as to whether he has settled for a high-pressing team or a more cautious team.

Also Read: 5 Worst Chelsea Managers Ever in Club History | Ranked

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