Ten times managers should have resigned this season: Slot, Amorim, Howe

Arne Slot has apparently offered to resign as Liverpool manager this season – he and a fair few others ought to have stepped down earlier.

As chastening as the FA Cup defeat to Manchester City was , it surely will not induce Slot’s resignation this late in the season with a Champions League quarter-final still to come.

But there are reports that Slot is willing to walk in what has felt like a particularly volatile season for managers.

So many could have abandoned doomed ships or jumped before being pushed, with these the most opportune moments for proud coaches willing to forego a hefty pay-off.

A uniquely miserable month in an utterly depressing season – and the first time one Spurs suit sensed they might have made a mistake .

It was suggested, in the aftermath of Frank’s actual demise in February, that ‘one leading executive recommended’ he be sacked after the home defeat to Fulham which was defined by his decision to hit out at the supporters after what is somehow no longer the club’s worst goalkeeping mistake of the campaign.

That brought November to a crashing halt after a north London derby thrashing at Arsenal and a truly risible defeat to Chelsea , with only a draw against Ruben Amorim’s Manchester United providing what barely amounted to respite from the misery.

Even their Champions League form was indifferent, featuring a win over Copenhagen before losing at Paris Saint-Germain. But the tide irreversibly turned with that Fulham game.

It will go down as one of the more absurd seasons in Premier League manager history, albeit with two unfathomable records sadly fading from view.

Nuno did, at one stage, appear destined to become the first coach to be sacked twice in a single Premier League campaign , and to help take two clubs down at once.

One P45 and relegation apiece? Those are rookie numbers.

And really the sack only came to fruition because Nuno decided to wait out the irrational Greek billionaire who happened to pay his wages.

Evangelos Marinakias had started undermining the Nottingham Forest boss at the end of last season, storming the pitch to admonish Nuno for letting their Champions League qualification chances slip before further emasculating him with the appointment of Edu to a newly-created role of immense power at the City Ground.

Perhaps Nuno should have walked then, or after a doom-mongering pre-season in which Forest failed to win any of their seven friendlies and scored just once, or when Marinakis started posting hostage photos to celebrate new player contracts, or when it became apparent that Ange Postecoglou was being lined up to replace him .

He instead stayed for an absurd eight days after that decisive 3-0 home defeat to West Ham – who funnily enough he should probably have left the moment they called his bluff and spent £25m on Taty Castellanos.

Yet Pereira’s personal season might have been even more ludicrous.

The relative success of his Nottingham Forest firefighter work thus far has helped whitewash an atrocious few months at Wolves which somehow included the signing of a new three-year contract and Pereira unfathomably being handed something close to complete control over the club’s transfer policy.

Jeff Shi – the former owner who has himself since stepped down – said Wolves “tried to build a squad based on [Pereira’s] view and his philosophy” in the summer, which basically amounted to targeting a load of tall lads with no Premier League experience, thus rejecting Harry Wilson before seeing him score in the game which forced Pereira’s sacking .

The red flag for Pereira should really have come when Wolves let him spend an eight-figure sum on Jackson Tchatchoua.

The news was revealed in January during a particularly brutal press conference for Crystal Palace , but Glasner declared that he had decided as far back as October not to sign a new contract at Selhurst Park.

Things have finally stabilised somewhat since, and there remains the legitimate prospect of another trophy to mark this glorious period in the club’s history.

But for an extended period of time there Palace supporters had to adjust to being gaslit by the very manager responsible for some of their greatest memories. If Glasner had simply resigned the moment he felt his time at the club was up, his stock would not have sustained quite so much damage and Roy Hodgson would have been spared the ignominy of an accidental Championship promotion push with Bristol City at 78, having embraced the comfort of one final Premier League relegation battle instead.

There is an argument to suggest Parker should make it his trademark to press the self-destruct button at a seemingly woefully underprepared team beginning with the letter B after a heavy August defeat , before watching Gary O’Neil easily steer them to serene safety.

It’s a quite narrow and specific niche to carve out, granted. But it is also still very funny that he called Bournemouth “ill-equipped at this level”, predicting further thrashings on a similar scale to their 9-0 defeat at Liverpool, and called on the hierarchy to “to make a decision and try and help this young group”, before seeing them do precisely that by simply sacking him and promoting one of his coaches to do a far better job.

The truth is Parker should have just gone the moment the Premier League fixtures were released and Burnley’s promotion from the Championship was ratified.

With “the worst 48 hours” of his tenure still to come the following month, Maresca would have been well served packing his things up and going home at the relative height of what was ultimately a forever doomed Chelsea spell.

It was never going to work out between a headstrong coach who probably doesn’t even have a LinkedIn profile, and a club at least as obsessed with meddling as it is winning medals.

So when Maresca masterminded victory over Barcelona in the Champions League and a draw against Arsenal five days later to underline perhaps the most misleading Premier League title credentials in history , his resignation would have been a remarkably powerful statement.

The wins over Manchester United and Chelsea were impressive and all, but calling Barcelona “the biggest game in this club’s history”, losing that Champions League tie 8-3 on aggregate and then concluding a March which also saw Newcastle exit the FA Cup by surrendering at home to Sunderland, should really have seen Howe channel his spiritual predecessor Kevin Keegan in falling on his sword .

A Champions League knockout tie against Paris Saint-Germain provides Slot with perhaps his favourite talking point, but also a moment to reflect on a remarkable Liverpool downturn.

Slot has frequently made reference to “the best game of football I was ever involved in” after losing to the side eventually crowned European champions last season.

But Liverpool’s form since the second leg of that defeat is stark, the Reds accruing fewer Premier League points than Brentford, only as many as a Manchester United side who have sacked their manager in that time, and just two more than Everton.

It could be argued that they have not played well since April, and possibly even further back than that. But the run of three-goal losses to Manchester City, Nottingham Forest and PSV in a damaging November was especially stark.

The month ended with Mo Salah being “thrown under the bus” and Slot reaching dangerous levels of headloss , from which neither he nor Liverpool have ever really recovered.

“This is a manager who basically decided to blow it all up. He’s been looking for the opportunity. He wanted out.”

The words of a Daily Telegraph insider – and, to be fair, Richard Keys for about ten months – to describe the headspace of Amorim around the time of his eventual and inevitable Manchester United exit.

It was during a fateful meeting with the omnipotent Jason Wilcox in the aftermath of a curious goalless draw at home to Wolves that Amorim was alleged to have reacted to supposedly level-headed and diplomatic criticism ‘by saying he wished to leave the club and would be calling his agent’.

Amorim was – apparently not for the first time – talked out of it, but was dispensed with one Leeds draw and a glorious press conference later. He could have saved himself the trip to Elland Road and just stepped down.