Merry-go-rounds

We've become all too used to the "managerial merry-go-round", to use the parlance of our time, and a sacking usually comes after the dreaded "vote of confidence", sometimes chairmen and owners are criticised for being to hasty with their decisions, other times its the fans who call for change.

In the modern game we see managers relieved of duties on such a regular basis we don't really bat an eye lid.  Sackings usually occur after a loss of form, the relegation of a team or lack of success; however this week saw the sacking (sorry "enforced gardening leave") of Sean O'Driscoll at Doncaster Rovers.  The fans had been calling for him to leave for the last few weeks having endured of run of 19 games without a victory.  Club owner John Ryan had publicly backed his manager earlier in the week saying "...who would you replace him with? Who is better?" before placing O'Driscoll on "gardening leave" on Friday and appointing Dean Saunders as his replacement.

The reason Ryan gave for the decision is not the usual blurb from one of the reasons above but instead he pointed to the injuries picked up by the players.  Ryan had become concerned that O'Driscoll couldn't get his squad fit and that there were too many injuries to key players saying "I've been worried that we've never been able to field our strongest eleven for months".

This doesn't seem like a real reason to me, most of the running of the playing side of the club is the managers remit, but isn't the fitness of the players is down to the medical staff.  Surely if the manager hasn't had his first choice eleven at his disposal for months he can't be expected to be that successful without further backing from the chief, which wasn't particularly forthcoming, especially for a man who took Doncaster to the Championship in the first place by beating Leeds in the play-off final in the 07/08 season and has subsequently kept them there.  The reason O'Driscoll lost his job was the poor run of form stretching back to last season, 19 games is a long time, especially across two seasons and most club owners would have given O'Driscoll the sack long ago, so why do we need the excuses?