Premier League sackings in 2022-23: The sack race

How many managers have been sacked in the Premier League this season? Well, it’s a lot – more Premier League managers have departed clubs in-season across 2022-23 than any other. We look at the unlucky selection.

Graham Potter became the 13th managerial departure of the 2022-23 Premier League season following his sacking at Chelsea in April. While it’s true that not all those managers have been sacked – Potter left Brighton to take up the Chelsea job in September, for example – the number of managers to leave Premier League clubs in-season across 2022-23 is higher than any other.

Potter’s departure came just 206 days after he was appointed at Stamford Bridge, following the club’s decision to fork out a reported £21.5m to snatch the manager from Brighton and Hove Albion.

His spell at Chelsea was the shortest of any ‘permanent’ manager at the club – even shorter than Luiz Felipe Scolari’s spell between July 2008 and February 2009. The Brazilian lasted 223 days as Blues’ boss, but even he had a superior record to Potter’s at the club in league competition, averaging 1.96 points per game before his sacking.

Across his 22 Premier League games as Chelsea manager, Potter averaged just 1.27 points per game – the joint-lowest points-per-game return of any manager to take charge of 20+ games for Chelsea in the Premier League alongside Glenn Hoddle.

The 28-point tally for Chelsea across Potter’s tenure was only the 11th highest by a club – two points lower than the team he left to join Chelsea for: Brighton (30).

Potter’s sacking came on the same day as Brendan Rodgers’ departure from Leicester City after 152 Premier League games in charge across a period of just over four years. This season has gone badly for the Foxes, but he did previously have Leicester City challenging for the top four and even won the FA Cup with the club in 2021.

Potter and Rodgers’ departures took the total managerial exits in the Premier League to 13 for the season. This is three more than any other Premier League campaign within the season itself, with last season being the joint-record (10) at the time. Twelve of those have been sackings – only Potter’s departure from Brighton to Chelsea has seen a manager leave on his own terms.

Rodgers’ tenure of four years and 33 days in charge of Leicester City was – as of yesterday morning – the fourth-longest tenure of ‘current’ Premier League managers, just behind Thomas Frank of Brentford and ahead of Mikel Arteta’s reign at Arsenal. With the Northern Irishman leaving Leicester yesterday, that means that only five current Premier League managers have been in charge of their respective clubs for longer than three years, and only eight have held their position for over a year.

The ninth (Erik ten Hag at Man Utd) and 10th (Gary O’Neil at Bournemouth) longest haven’t even been in charge of their respective clubs for a whole season.

Which Managers Have Left Premier League Jobs in 2022-23?

Scott Parker (Bournemouth): 30 August 2022

The first managerial casualty of the 2022-23 Premier League season was Bournemouth’s Scott Parker. His departure came after a 9-0 thrashing at Anfield against Liverpool, equalling the biggest Premier League defeat of all time. Bournemouth had won on the opening weekend at home to Aston Villa, but then lost their next three games against Man City, Arsenal and Liverpool (not easy, admittedly), which cost Parker his job – this despite taking them up from the Championship just months earlier.

Only 11 Premier League sackings have come earlier in a season than Parker’s, just 25 days into the 2022-23 campaign.

The Englishman has already been sacked from his role following his time at the Cherries. Club Brugge took a chance on him, but two victories in 12 league games with the Belgian champions along with a trashing in the Uefa Champions League last 16 against Benfica saw his time at the club come to an end after less than three months.

Thomas Tuchel (Chelsea): 7 September 2022

Tuchel was relieved of his duties as Chelsea manager just 33 days into the 2022-23 season – the morning after they suffered a poor 1-0 defeat away at Dinamo Zagreb in the Uefa Champions League.

Chelsea had already been stuttering in the Premier League, with defeat at both Leeds United (3-0) and Southampton (2-1) within the opening month of the season, while cracks were appearing in just the second game of the season, with Tuchel and Antonio Conte’s infamous handshake following a dramatic 2-2 draw at Stamford Bridge.

Graham Potter (Brighton): 8 September 2022

The only non-sacking managerial departure of the Premier League season, so far. Potter left Brighton & Hove Albion after three full seasons at the club, where he’d turned the Seagulls from relegation contenders into challengers for European football.

He went out in style at the club, with a brilliant 5-2 home win over Leicester City – the first time Brighton had scored five goals in a Premier League game.

Brighton announced his departure on 8 September, following Chelsea paying a compensation figure reported to be in the region of £21.5m for the English coach.

Bruno Lage (Wolves): 2 October 2022

Lage was relieved of his duties at Wolves on 2 October following a 2-0 away defeat at West Ham a day earlier. The Portuguese boss had picked up just one win in his first eight Premier League games in charge across 2022-23, losing half of games (four).

It took over a month for Wolves to replace Lage, with successor Julen Lopetegui being announced as new head coach on 14 November, with the side rooted to the bottom of the Premier League table and four points from safety.

Steven Gerrard (Aston Villa): 21 October 2022

Aston Villa had only won nine points from their opening 11 games of the Premier League season when they sacked Gerrard on 21 October – only Leicester City (eight) and Nottingham Forest (six) had won fewer points than the Birmingham-based club (nine).

Gerrard had been in charge of the club for less than a year, after taking over on 11 November 2021 and overseeing 40 matches in all competitions.

Ralph Hasenhüttl (Southampton): 7 November 2022

At the time of Hasenhüttl’s sacking, only Jürgen Klopp, Pep Guardiola and Thomas Frank had been in charge of current Premier League clubs for a longer period than the Austrian (1 432 days), but his tenure came to an end in early November.

After back-to-back defeats in the Premier League against Crystal Palace (1-0) and at home to Newcastle eight days later (4-1), the Southampton board decided to act. Saints were third from bottom with 12 points from 14 games when Hasenhüttl left.

Frank Lampard (Everton): 23 January 2023

After being sacked as Chelsea manager in January 2021, Lampard suffered another setback in his managerial career with a second Premier League sacking two years later – this time at struggling Everton. His departure was the first following the mid-season 2022 World Cup, but it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

At the time of his sacking, Everton were only kept off the foot of the table on goal difference ahead of Southampton, with both strugglers stuck on 15 points from 20 matches.

Jesse Marsch (Leeds): 6 February 2023

Leeds United called time of Marsch’s spell as the club’s manager on 6 February, just a day after a 1-0 defeat in a crucial game against fellow relegation-threatened Nottingham Forest in the Premier League.

At the time, Leeds were kept out of the relegation zone only on goal difference but had gone on a seven-game winless league run (L4 D3).

The American coach was eventually replaced by former Watford manager Javi Gracia on 21 February, and he won his first game in charge of the club against Southampton (1-0) at Elland Road, ended a 10-game winless streak in the competition.

Nathan Jones (Southampton): 12 February 2023

Southampton chose Luton manager Nathan Jones as their ideal replacement for the outgoing Ralph Hasenhüttl, but the Welshman was quick to find out that the Premier League wasn’t as forgiving as the Championship.

Jones lasted just 94 days as Southampton manager – a period that saw him pick up just one win and three points in eight Premier League games at the club. His tenure would have surely been shorter and closer to the Premier League record set by Les Reed at Charlton in 2006 (40 days) had it not been for the mid-season World Cup, too.

Patrick Vieira (Crystal Palace): 17 March 2023

Former French international midfielder Patrick Vieira was dismissed as Crystal Palace boss in mid-March, where he was replaced by their former gaffer and oldest ever Premier League manager, Roy Hodgson.

Admittedly, Palace weren’t doing well under Vieira, with the side on an 11-game winless streak in the Premier League in which they picked up just five points – but they did have the easiest run-in on paper of all top-flight sides in England.

Antonio Conte (Tottenham): 26 March 2023

Conte was dismissed as Spurs manager following this outburst in the post-match press conference in the hour after a 3-3 away draw at struggling Southampton.

I mean, it was hardly a surprise he went after this, was it.

Brendan Rodgers (Leicester): 2 April 2023

Rodgers may have seen his Leicester City side struggle this season, but overall he can be proud of the job he did at the Foxes – even bringing them FA Cup glory in 2021.

Across his spell as Leicester City manager, only the so-called ‘big six’ won more Premier League points than they did (222), while 29 per cent of his league defeats as the Foxes’s boss (17/58) came this season.

Graham Potter (Chelsea): 2 April 2023

Potter became the 13th Premier League manager to leave his job in 2022-23, and the 12th to be sacked. Having already overseen two Premier League clubs this season, it would be foolish to rule out the chance of a third, with Potter’s stock still high and many clubs needing or likely to be needing a new coach in the competition.

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