La Liga’s sack procession

The Eredivisie, the Bundesliga and Ligue 1 have had one each this season. In the Portuguese Primeira Liga, there has been two. In Serie A, there has been four, and if rumours are to be believed, the fifth and sixth might not be too far away. But in Spain, we're still waiting on it.

The first sacking of the season. It's difficult to describe what's going on in La Liga as a sack race, because if it were a race all the winners would all be stood at the finish line wearing quizzical expressions, wondering where their prizes – or should that read P45s – are.

More of a sack procession, with Mauricio Pochettino, Jose Luis Mendilibar and Juan Antonio Anquela in the vanguard.

Pochettino has presided over Espanyol's worst ever start to a Primera Division season. Los Periquitos were the last of the League's 20 clubs to register their first win, a case of eighth time lucky when they scraped a 3-2 victory over Rayo Vallecano a week-and-a-half ago and Pochettino, the poor fellow, has at times even seemed to be pleading to be fired.

“If the club has issues with my role or my way of doing things then it is not going to be a problem, it can be solved in two minutes.”

Mendilibar's Osasuna, after a 7th place finish last season – their best for six years – have had a virtual monopoly on last place this term, occupying it for five of the campaign's nine weeks, and are residing there now.

Anquela, the man who masterminded Alcorcon's humiliation of Real Madrid in the Copa del Rey a few years ago, has made an underwhelming La Liga debut with Granada, who are the Division's joint lowest scorers despite the Pozzo family's generous donation of yet more Udinese players and the big money purchase of striker Youssef El-Arabi.

And let's not forget El Loco himself, Athletic Bilbao's Marcelo Bielsa, who has started a fist fight with a construction manager, had recordings of his dressing room speeches leaked to the Press and left his best player on the bench all season – not to mention the five defeats in their last six games.

None of these men would have a case to take their club to an unfair dismissal tribunal if they were shown the door, yet at the time of writing they all remain in their posts.

So should we be commending the club Presidents for being such a patient and understanding bunch? Or looking for alternative explanations for their hesitancy to pull the trigger?

Finance could be one. After a summer in which La Liga spent considerably less than all the other major Leagues and its clubs were hauled over the coals by the tax authorities, Presidents need to be mindful of every penny spent. Sacking Coaches, and hiring replacements, is an expensive business.

The events of last season might also be playing a part. Over the course of the 2011-12 campaign 10 managerial changes were made, and only a handful of them can be said to have been resounding successes, Atletico Madrid's hiring of Diego Simeone one notable example. The outfits that were relegated, Villarreal, Sporting Gijon and Racing Santander, went through nine Coaches between them.

La Liga - Club News