JUST IN: Arsenal owner Stan Kroenke line up possible replacement for Mikel Arteta as The Spain international sack letter looming if He fails to win any major trophy this season
JUST IN: Arsenal owner Stan Kroenke line up possible replacement for Mikel Arteta as The Spain international sack letter looming if He fails to win any major trophy this season
For no real reason other than a bit of sh*thousery, here are five Premier League managers we don’t expect to be in their current Premier League roles by the end of 2025.
We took the decision to exclude the three managers of the three clubs obviously getting relegated from consideration, because that would have been no fun.
Ange Postecoglou (Tottenham)
Astonishingly fortunate to still have a job having created an injury crisis with his absurd football and then survived a disastrous series of results precisely because of that same injury crisis.
Having weathered the worst of the storm it now looks like Postecoglou will probably survive the season, especially while the Europa League remains an attainable goal. And it’s a goal that Postecoglou’s own failures this season have paradoxically rendered more achievable given it is now very obviously a primary focus.
If he delivers that promised second-season trophy and with it a Champions League place, he will be able to legitimately point to the fact this instantly becomes Spurs’ best season in 40 years and it would thus probably be quite harsh to bin him despite the obvious frailties and flaws inherent in everything he does.
There is no doubt the fact that his future prospects at Tottenham now rely on a high-wire, high-stakes, high-risk, high-reward, sh*t-or-bust gamble on one knockout tournament does feel very much in sync with his ‘Just who we are, mate’ philosophy.
But even if we didn’t have to take the Spurs Trophy Factor into account – and we surely do – the bald fact that he probably needs to win the Europa League to have a better-than-even chance of seeing in 2026 as Tottenham manager is enough to make him an easy first pick here.
It’s not even ‘LOL Spursy Spurs’ to observe that on balance of probability they will not in fact win the Europa League. Fifteen of the 16 teams still in it will not win it and while Spurs have a better shot than most, it remains a pretty flimsy basket in which to have placed all one’s season-and-job-saving eggs.
And should Spurs go Full Spurs at any time over the next couple of rounds would anyone truly be surprised to see the perfunctory motions of the remainder of a moribund Premier League season gone through by Ryan ‘Interim’ Mason?
It would be purely symbolic at that stage and a neater summer split remains more likely, but while we have underestimated Daniel Levy’s level of attachment to his current manager before, we remain of the view that it would be more surprising if he is Spurs manager on January 1 than if he isn’t.
Enzo Maresca (Chelsea)
Has made the foolish error of reversing Mauricio Pochettino’s Chelsea arc by starting superbly and then having it all turn to sh*t.
And the fact that turning a sh*t start into a superb finish still wasn’t enough to save Pochettino when it is generally considered a much more attractive way round to do things should really worry Maresca.
Very clearly still a manager adjusting to his first elite job who hasn’t yet quite learned that an elite job brings with it certain expectations, Maresca’s apparent fondness for saying very small-time things indeed has not endeared him to a Chelsea fanbase well used to managerial churn but also well used to extraordinary success.
With the erratic disruptor-in-chief Todd Boehly ever prone to a kneejerk response to any setback, it’s doubtful that even a probable saunter through the formalities of adding the Conference League to Chelsea’s otherwise complete set of European baubles could save Maresca now form and opinion have started to turn against him. And if they somehow don’t win the Conference…
Pep Guardiola (Man City)
The way we see it, there are only two possibilities here at opposite extremes of the spectrum.
Man City complete a reset and regeneration in the summer – they did, in fairness, make a start on this in January given their season was already f*cked – and a rested and rejuvenated Pep Guardiola has them back in their rightful place 10 points clear by the end of 2025.
Or, and we’re starting to think more plausibly, the summer gives him time to pause, reflect and realise he has had enough of it all, that he doesn’t have the energy or enthusiasm to rebuild a new great Manchester City side from scratch.
There is no in-between option that we can see at this time.
Whether it all ends in the summer or more damagingly and unpleasantly in the early months of the next season, the end has never seemed nearer for one of the great Premier League managers.
One thing that remains certain is that whenever Guardiola’s time at City is up it will one hundred per cent be on his own terms. He, not City, will decide when this ends. For all the giddy talk when City were at their late-2024 worst, there is quite correctly no way they will sack him.
He probably shouldn’t accept the job but also he probably will accept the job, because football.
Iraola has shown a greater adaptability than Postecoglou managed with greater resources in the face of an injury crisis, with the obvious worry there for Spurs that he might just be another manager whose style of football carries enhanced injury risk.
Iraola’s Bournemouth have also been a gloriously streaky side, prone to bursting into runs of seven wins from nine games and then just not bothering to win in the league for another six weeks or somesuch. But what passes for endearing eccentricity at Bournemouth would see protests and banners at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
These are things to give Daniel Levy pause, but there’s obviously something he’s enjoying about Angeball because he hasn’t binned it off yet despite things getting well beyond the point he would normally have pressed the big red Ryan Mason button. So maybe when he does have to reluctantly change in the summer he’ll go for the nearest current match in the Barclays.
Let’s also not forget that the last managerial appointment Levy got undeniably right was when he appointed an enterprising manager who had caught the eye with a smaller Premier League club. Very Levy and Very Spurs that this is a tactic they have never once thought to try again because they thought they were bigger and cleverer than that.
Mikel Arteta (Arsenal)
F*ck it, got to go big with the last one here, haven’t we? Can’t all be built on logic. We did, of course, consider Ruben Amorim but our suspicion there is that there will be a deep reluctance from all sides to admit they’ve all f*cked it right up even as the earth is being scorched and salted. Everyone will stick it out for appearance’s sake and another two or three rounds of redundancies until at least this time next year, hiding behind the idea he needs to be given time for his signings to integrate with what’s left of the squad of unsuitables and undesirables he inherited.
Absolutely everyone involved will be lying to themselves as it all plays to an inevitable yet painfully drawn-out conclusion, but the key thing is we just don’t see that conclusion coming swiftly enough for a 2025 deadline.
Then we thought about Eddie Howe. We still suspect that if the owners of Newcastle even care that much any more and aren’t all distracted by the World Cup and such that they will at some stage wish to install a Genuinely Elite Manager at St James’ Park, and what Genuinely Elite Manager generally means is Not An English Manager.
But every time we make any attempt to get a ‘Howe Sack’ narrative moving the prick goes and wins like eight games in a row, so we’re not risking that again.
Arne Slot would be a bold choice but a performative one. Unai Emery? There were Mailbox rumblings after that Palace defeat that were hard to ignore. But is he really a big enough fish to justify going balls out? Not really.
It has to be Arteta. Another (probably) trophyless season is going to require a fresh round of process-trusting, and we’re just not sure anyone can be bothered with it anymore.
Arteta has cut an even more manic and frazzled figure than ever before this season, which also only makes us even more suspicious about his hair.
At some time Arsenal have to reach a point where they conclude Arteta has carried them far but can get them no further. The fact he still hasn’t won a non-asterisked trophy with his own team has to start counting for something, and it hurts him significantly that the team Arsenal couldn’t stay with isn’t even Man City but a team under a brand new manager.
By the end of December this year Arteta will be into his seventh year as Arsenal manager. If he doesn’t at that stage look like delivering the 2025/26 title then just how much longer does his process get?
