Is ‘sacking season’ still a thing?
The Athletic FC Podcast
The Athletic
4.0 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 10 December 2025
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
December is traditionally sacking season. But things feel a little different this season.
So have clubs become more patient? And why?
Ayo Akinwolere is joined by The Athletic’s Jack Pitt-Brooke and Mark Critchley. James Horncastle also drops in to chat Como’s Cesc Fabregas - one of football’s most exciting up and coming coaches.
Host: Ayo Akinwolere
Guests: Jack Pitt-Brooke, Mark Critchley. James Horncastle
Executive Producer: Abi Paterson
Producers: Mike Stavrou, Nick Thomson
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Athletic FC |
| 0:03.1 | Welcome to the Athletic FC podcast with me, Ayur Akim Malori. |
| 0:09.2 | December is traditionally sacking season, but things feel a little different this season. |
| 0:14.9 | Have clubs become more patient? |
| 0:19.1 | All right, in with us today. we've got Jack Pittbrook. |
| 0:21.6 | We've also got Mark Critchley as well. |
| 0:24.1 | Jens, let's talk about managers. |
| 0:26.2 | So far this season, Jack, four managers have been sacked, and they are Nuno Espirito Santo |
| 0:30.9 | and Angi Postaloglu at Nottingham Forest, Graham Potter at West Ham, and also Bicto Pereira at Wolves. |
| 0:37.3 | In general, and this is going to be |
| 0:39.7 | the basis of this conversation, at what point does a manager's position become untenable? |
| 0:46.7 | Well, there's a few things. I think one is if the fans are clearly not having the manager. |
| 0:51.9 | I think we saw that with Forest fans and angioplostoclou, |
| 0:56.7 | not with forest fans and nuno, but with forest fans and angiostercoglu, that was a clear example that |
| 1:00.7 | the forest fans were not having the manager. And at that point, I think when it gets that toxic, |
| 1:05.2 | the manager has to go. Sometimes it can be the relationship between the manager and the owner. So when Nuno made some |
| 1:14.4 | comments about his relationship with Maranakis at the start of the season, the Nottingham Forest |
| 1:19.7 | owner, and I think after, he wasn't even especially critical, but I think when you start raising |
| 1:24.3 | that kind of topic in public, like it's pretty obvious what's going to happen |
| 1:28.4 | down the line. So that's the factor as well. And I guess the other one is, if it just becomes |
| 1:33.0 | clear that the manager can no longer get anything out of the players, you know, whether it's |
| 1:37.9 | Vito Pereira at Wolves, they were clearly just going nowhere. Graham Potter at West Ham, |
... |
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