Ten Premier League managers who outstayed their welcome includes Ten Hag and Wenger

Erik ten Hag is outstaying his welcome at Manchester United and he is not the first, nor will he be the last, to do so in the Premier League.

This is not for your rotten managers who came in, were rotten, and were sacked. But the ones who stuck around long after their hosts had slapped their legs and said ‘well…’.

Arsene Wenger (Arsenal)
Arsene Wenger is a bona fide legend in the storied history of Arsenal but there is no doubt that he stayed a lot longer than was wise; the FA Cup win in 2014 would have been the perfect way to bow out after ending a nine-year wait for silverware.

Wenger had divided a fanbase like no other during his final years at the Emirates – a stadium that he essentially built – with half in the ‘Wenger out’ mob, and the other half refusing to criticise the man who has given their club so much time, devotion and success.

Wenger signed a new contract following the FA Cup win, and he did follow that with another the  next season, and then a title push in 2016, falling short to Leicester City.

Wenger eventually announced the “very brutal” decision to leave in April 2018, describing the criticism he faced as “unjustified”. Many Arsenal fans were giddy, and probably justified in thinking that Wenger should have walked four years before.

Roberto Martinez (Everton)
Martinez moved to Everton in June 2013 after leading Wigan Athletic to FA Cup glory…and relegation. That sort of nonsense was perfect for the Toffees job and the Spaniard stepped in as David Moyes’ successor, with the Scot off to Manchester United.

He started well, as a lot of people in this list did, and almost qualified for the Champions League in his first season but bottled it. Fifth was still an incredible finish but it would only go downhill from there, with the Goodison Park faithful soon calling for Martinez’s head.

The ex-Wigan boss’ second year in charge brought an uncomfortable 11th-place finish with more losses than wins and draws. The pressure was on and another 11th-place finish was the final straw, with FA Cup and Carabao Cup semi-finals papering over the cracks.

During the 2015/16 campaign, Everton fans were furious with Martinez’s management of the team but he reached matchday 37 before being sacked and eventually taking over the top-ranked nation in world football, as you do.

Fans had planned to stage a protest against Martinez at the club’s annual awards night after five home wins all season. It was a shambolic year at Goodison Park before that became the norm.

Erik ten Hag (Manchester United)
There is a lot being said about Ten Hag after another humiliating defeat, this time at the hands of (lads, it’s) Tottenham. There has been a longstanding lack of identity at Man Utd with the former Ajax manager at the helm, unless he wants his side to identify as a team that enjoys conceding shots on goal for fun, being run through with ease, having an anonymous midfield, and failing to create chances.

If that is what he is striving for, then he is doing a spectacular job of relaying that to his players.

It’s all negativity at Old Trafford after a fun summer and it feels like a matter of time until Ten Hag is sacked, especially with trips to FC Porto and Aston Villa looming. Both matches are very tricky and not what you want when you’re a club in crisis.

Ten Hag should have been sacked at the end of last season, if not during 2023/24, but won the FA Cup final against Man City and earned a new contract, not least because Sir Jim Ratcliffe couldn’t bring in any of the managers he liked.

That contract extension means Ten Hag’s compensation will be bigger if dismissed but that mustn’t hold the Man Utd hierarchy back. We will miss you, Erik, but you are a lucky boy to still be around.

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Steve Bruce (Newcastle)
It was a change of ownership that eventually saw Steve “How’s The Bacon” Bruce sacked at Newcastle United after years of being universally loathed.

Newcastle finished in the same position and were one point worse off than under Rafael Benitez in Bruce’s first season, and the former Man Utd defender equalled Benitez’s point tally in his second year. But that did not tell the full story, with Bruce under severe pressure to prove himself from day one, having replaced a manager the supporters loved and wanted to stay, and due to his previous employment at Sunderland.

He was fighting a losing battle and found it impossible to win over fans with his negative style of play and underwhelming results. St James’ Park can be very toxic and the toxicity levels were off the scales with Bruce in charge.

After trying to hound him out for the best part of two years, Newcastle fans got their wish when Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund bought the club from Mike Ashley. The club’s new owners were polite enough to give Bruce one game in charge – a home defeat to Tottenham – but he was swiftly replaced by Eddie Howe.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer (Manchester United)
Man Utd were “back” during Solskjaer’s caretaker reign at Old Trafford and that gave the club legend the keys to take the wheel on a permanent basis. He didn’t bring any trophies but there were plenty of semi-finals and the occasional final for the fans to get up – and ultimately down – for.

As they have consistently done post-Sir Alex Ferguson, Man Utd underachieved with Solskjaer in charge but at least you could see what he was trying to achieve on the pitch, which is kind of the bare minimum.

He got the job in March and led Man Utd to a sixth-place finish, but at least they beat Paris Saint-Germain in the last 16 of the Champions League. The following year saw them finish a decent third with behind-closed-doors Bruno Fernandes shining and the Red Devils thriving away from home. Then a second-place finish was impressive but they ‘amassed’ a pretty underwhelming 74 points.

While Solskjaer allowed Fernandes to play at his very best, Man Utd were being carried by the Portuguese and would be rubbish for 70 minutes and spawn their way to victory in the other 20.

As with Ten Hag, Ole signed a new contract before his final season and started catastrophically , losing heavily at home to Liverpool and leaking goals for fun, not least against Watford in his final match in charge. It was a sad day for our traffic but a long overdue one when Man Utd finally sacked Solskjaer.

He is the second tallest dwarf in our ranking of Manchester United managers post-Ferguson .

David Moyes (West Ham)
West Ham fans were warned to ‘be careful what you wish for’ when politely requesting that Moyes would p*ss off and that particular brigade are feeling pretty smug given their early struggles under Julen Lopetegui, but there is no debating that the Scot was right to be moved on. In fact, his exit came a little too late in the day.

Moyes could have left a hero after making the Hammers European champions (ish) but he stayed to stumble his way through the 23/24 campaign. There were the occasional scalps against Arsenal and Tottenham on the road but there were also embarrassing defeats to the Gunners, Aston Villa, Fulham, Man Utd, Crystal Palace and Chelsea.

West Ham were a shambles defensively and their second half to the season was embarrassing. All parties were left counting down the days to the end of the Scot’s contract.

Alan Pardew and John Carver (Newcastle)
Newcastle were ridiculous enough to offer Pardew an eight-year contract in 2012; you don’t need hindsight to know that it was a very obvious recipe for disaster.

As the ludicrous contract agreement suggests, things were going incredibly well under Pardew, with various beautiful French footballers capturing hearts at St James’ Park and Pardew winning Manager of the Season. The 12/13 season was understandably not quite as impressive with awful results like 3-0 at home to Sunderland thrown into the mix alongside a first Old Trafford win in 41 years.

The abuse Pardew and Ashley received throughout the 13/14 season was visceral but Ashley kept faith in the man with a silly number of years left on his contract. Go figure.

There was an upturn in form before Pardew’s departure in December 2014 but that did not change the opinion of even the most knee-jerk Newcastle fan.

His replacement, John Carver, outstayed his welcome too, despite only being in charge for the second half of that season. It was a run of form in December that ultimately kept Newcastle up as the “best coach in the Premier League” did everything in his power to relegate them.

As soon as their was a sniff of a relegation battle, Carver should have been binned. He was way out of his depth and nowhere near equipped to manage a Premier League side.

Avram Grant (West Ham)
West Ham waited at least half a season too long to sack Grant. By the time they did, in May 2011, they were bottom of the table and bound for the Championship.

Grant got the job on the back of finishing bottom the season before, though Portsmouth’s ownership shambles offered the former Chelsea boss just enough mitigation. The writing was on the wall, however, when the Hammers got off to their worst-ever start in the Premier League. By the time they finally earned their first point – five games in at Stoke – Grant wasn’t even in attendance, missing the game for Yom Kippur.

By mid-December, when only one more win had been achieved, Grant was reportedly issued with an ultimatum: win one of the next three games or face the sack. Luckily for the manager, Fulham rolled over to have their bellies tickled on Boxing Day. Even more fortunately for the other relegation contenders, Grant was safe.

The Hammers reportedly approached Martin O’Neill in mid-January to step in with the club bottom of the table, but O’Neill backed off. Rather than look elsewhere, Davids Gold and Sullivan allowed their dead man walking to stumble on to the end of the season.

One point from the club’s final eight games condemned West Ham to the second tier. Four months too late, Grant was sacked immediately after the 3-2 defeat at Wigan which confirmed their relegation. Meanwhile, a plane flew above Lancashire declaring: ‘AVRAM GRANT – MILLWALL LEGEND’.

Steve Kean (Blackburn)
Allardyce had done a decent job at Blackburn up to the point when it was decided by Rovers’ new owners to dispense with his services. In his place, Venky’s installed Kean, a man with no previous managerial experience but he was a client of Jerome Anderson, the agent who advised them through their purchase of the club. Nothing to see there…

Kean was initially appointed on a caretaker basis but barely a week later, just before Christmas in 2010, he got the gig through to the end of the season. Then, two weeks after that, he was given a two-year contract. The results in the intervening fortnight: Blackburn 0-2 Stoke; West Brom 1-3 Blackburn; Sunderland 3-0 Blackburn.

With Kean’s future tied up, Venky’s were chasing the likes of David Beckham and Ronaldinho. By the end of the winter window, they had signed Mauro Formica and Ruben Rochina as well as Roque Santa Cruz and Jermaine Jones on loan.

Of course, Kean would never rock the boat because he knew he had been promoted way above his talents. Not that he would ever admit it. Still, he swerved relegation during his first run-in as a manager, securing survival on the final day.

Under Kean, Blackburn won only twice before Christmas in 2011/12. The owners faced the wrath of Rovers fans, who pleaded with them to appoint a proper manager. How did they respond? They gave Kean a pay rise, obvs.

With Rovers bottom of the table at the turn of the year, even MP Jack Straw urged the owners to replace Kean. Not that the manager was concerned. He stated he would be “100 per cent shocked” if he was sacked.

Even relegation didn’t end Kean’s reign. That only came three games into the following season when Kean said he had been “forced to resign” with his position “untenable”. His reign lasted 20 and a half months, which was around 20 months too long.