adminThe football manager’s position has never been less secure, so here’s a ranking of all 24 Championship managers according to how likely we think they are to be sacked.
The September international break is a distant memory and the nights are starting to draw in, so it’s likely that some managerial hot-seats are set to become considerably warmer.
The list of managerial replacements during the 2024-25 season is dizzying. Ten new managers came in at the end of the season alone, with more than one club having replaced theirs more than once over the previous nine months.
The question of who’ll be the next to go is an open one. There’s a case to be made for saying that fewer than half of those listed will still be in their positions by the last weekend of this season, and that number will almost certainly be even greater by the start of next season.
So with all of that in mind, FLW have ranked all 24 Championship managers by how likely they are to be sacked this season.
There is something counterintuitive about putting the manager of a team with no points and one goal from six games being in bottom place on a list like this, but Chris WIlder hasn’t been in the Sheffield United job for two weeks yet, so he’s probably safe until the end of the season, unless the Blades are still on no points in a couple of months time. Nobody knows Sheffield United better than Wilder – this is, after all, his third spell as their manager – and while promotion might already be beyond them for this season, he should be okay for the rest of the season so long as they pull clear of the relegation places.
Having taken Luton Town into the Premier League in 2023, Rob Edwards was a natural choice to succeed Michael Carrick at Middlesbrough during the summer. And it’s fair to say that he has had an excellent start. Boro have only dropped two points from their first six games of the season, and they’re already four points clear at the top of the table. He isn’t going anywhere, unless somebody bigger were to come in for him.
An even bigger surprise to the start of this season than Middlesbrough soaring to the top of the table has been Stoke City’s ascent to second place. Stoke were last relegated from the Premier League in 2018, and in the seven seasons since then they’ve failed to finish above 14th in the Championship. But Mark Robins has taken them to the second automatic promotion place, and that has surely bought him some amount of slack, even were Stoke’s form to dip.
Another team to have had a successful start to the season is Bristol City, who are well-placed for a shot at promotion this season under Gerhard Struber. He arrived as a replacement for the Norwich-bound Liam Manning during the summer, and only a surprise home defeat at the hands of Oxford United prevented them from moving into the top two before the end of September. It’s possible that takeover talk could alter this equation. New owners do have a tendency to bring in their own man. But were that to happen, it wouldn’t be on the basis of Struber’s record as the Robins’ manager.
The former Derby, Chelsea and Everton manager Frank Lampard had big boots to fill in replacing Mark Robins at Coventry in November 2024, but he took them into the play-offs, where they only lost to the eventually-promoted Sunderland in the semi-finals thanks to a goal in stoppage-time in extra-time. To miss out on a place at Wembley and a shot at a place in the Premier League was heartbreaking, and Coventry could have been forgiven a bit of a hangover at the start of this season. But instead, they’re still unbeaten after six games, one of which was a 7-1 win against Queens Park Rangers.
Paul Heckingbottom is the first manager on this list to have been in his position for more than a year. But only just, having been appointed in August 2024. He was arguably fortunate to survive the end of last season. Preston North End only finished in 20th place in the Championship, and only two points above the relegation places. But he did, and Preston are another of the Championship’s more stalwart clubs to have had a decent start to this season, with North End sitting in 5th place in the table. But if Preston’s form were to decline, that narrow escape might just get back into the minds of the club’s powers that be.
The very fact that Marti Cifuentes left Queens Park Rangers in 15th in the Championship last season made his appointment at the freshly-relegated Leicester City something of a surprise. But expectations will be high for him this season nevertheless, and he’s made a decent start, with the Foxes in 4th place in the Championship. He also has the potential protection of the club’s financial position, which has restricted spending, while seasoned stars such as Jamie Vardy have left, and it’s likely that the club will be hit with a points deduction this season, all of which is bad news for Leicester City but may be good for Cifuentes’ job security.
Alex Neil took the Millwall job at the very end of 2024, and he was rewarded for his team’s performance with a new contract at the end of last season. The Lions finished last season in 8th place in the Championship, and were in the chase for a play-off place until the last weekend of the season. This season has seen a solid start, with the team in the middle of the table, and doesn’t seem likely that he’d be sacked unless the team put in a run of bad form that hasn’t looked likely so far yet this season.
Stephan replaced Marti Cifuentes at Queens Park Rangers with a decent CV, having taken Rennes into the Champions League in 2020. QPR had an extremely busy summer in the transfer window, and expectations were higher than they had been around Loftus Road with the arrival of some talented new attacking players, including Richard Kone and Kwame Poku. There’s an argument to be made that, if Stephan was going to be sacked this season, it was most likely to happen after their 7-1 humbling at Coventry in August, but he held on then and Rangers have won all three of their league games since.
Henrik Pedersen may just have the toughest job in the EFL at the moment. With a threadbare squad, no likelihood of being able to bring in replacements, and a points deduction likely to be applied, Sheffield Wednesday are unsurprisingly among the favourites to be relegated at the end of this season. But like Marti Cifuentes, Pedersen has excuses, and it might even be the case that they couldn’t afford to sack him, even if they wanted to. The eccentricity of Dejphon Chansiri means that a sacking can’t be ruled out at Hillsborough, but it’s not as likely as it feels as though it should be.
West Bromwich Albion are another club who have broadly underachieved since their last relegation from the Premier League, and the level of expectation that hangs over The Hawthorns may be the biggest problem that Ryan Mason faces. Mason is a relative rookie, and his appointment from the Spurs coaching staff was a bold move from the club. But Mason has made a decent, if unspectacular start and Albion are in 7th place in the table. There are few reasons to feel that he’s in any particular danger for the time being.
Having impressed during his second spell as the club’s caretaker-manager, including a run of five straight wins which represented Swansea City’s best run of consecutive league wins in 18 years, Alan Sheehan was handed a longer-term contract at the end of last season. Swansea’s mid-table start to the season is about where we’d expect to see them, but a run of defeats like that run of wins earlier in the year would put him at risk.
Mid-table in the Championship, and mid-table in this division, Nathan Jones’s season could really go either way. Charlton’s big problem so far has been in front of goal. They’ve failed to score more than a single goal in any of their six Championship matches so far this season, but if Jones can crack that they could even push up towards the play-offs, though at the same time Charlton were only promoted by the skin of their teeth through the play-offs last season and could find themselves sliding towards the relegation places. Were that to happen, Jones would ascend quickly to the nearer the top of this list.
Charlton are only above Portsmouth at the time of writing on alphabetical order at the time of writing, but John Mousinho feels at slightly greater risk than Nathan Jones because Portsmouth have had one more season in this division than Charlton. Mousinho has some credit in the bank at Fratton Park for having taken Pompey to the 2023-24 League One title, but they only finished 16th in the Championship last season and progress so far this season has been modest. Mousinho has been with the club for almost three years now, but if that progress feels as though it’s stopped, he could be looking for another job.
Ipswich Town’s sluggish start to the new season following relegation from the Premier League has been one of the surprises of the Championship season so far, but having taken Ipswich from League One to the Premier League, McKenna has more credit in the bank at Portman Road than most managers of a club just relegated from the Premier League would have. In addition to this, McKenna could make the argument that he’s had to deal with the loss of his two best players this summer, with the departures of Liam Delap and Omari Hutchinson. But football at this level is notoriously unsentimental, and if it did look as though Ipswich could slide back to League One, his position could be at considerable risk.
Birmingham City are ambitious, and there’s a question mark over whether Chris Davies’ profile will be high enough for a club with plans to build a 62,000-capacity and which has the support of Tom Brady. Birmingham spent a lot of money in the summer transfer window and have had a solid start to the season, so the biggest question concerning Davies is how realistic the owners will be should things start to turn sour. But it should be added that Birmingham’s 111-point League One championship season was his first as a manager, and such an outstanding start to his career may afford him a little leeway should a second successive promotion not be viable this season.
Ewood Park seldom seems to be a particularly happy place, and Blackburn Rovers had a modest start to the season, losing three of their first four games of the season and getting eliminated from the EFL Cup at the first hurdle by League One Bradford City. But performances have picked up a little. Their win at Watford was solid, and they led Ipswich 1-0 with ten minutes to play when the match was abandoned because of a waterlogged pitch. Ismael has only been in his job since the end of February, so he should get a decent run unless the team suffers a severe dip in form.
Hull City are another of the cluster of clubs in the middle of the Championship table, and that represents progress compared to last season, when the Tigers only avoided relegation on the last day of the season. Jakirovic also has the mitigation of working under an EFL-imposed fee restriction that came about as a result of things that happened before he arrived at the club. But then again, Hull’s owner is Acun Illicali, who told BBC Radio Humberside upon the sacking of previous incumbent Ruben Selles that, “Nottingham Forest changed nine coaches in four or five years and now they maybe go to the Champions League, which is my dream”, which doesn’t bode well for Jakirovic’s long-term prospects at the MKM Stadium.
Oxford United are the fifth side in the current Championship that Gary Rowett has managed, and following his appointment at Oxford in December 2024 he achieved his goal for the season, to keep Oxford in the championship following promotion at the end of the season before. But we already know that Oxford’s owners can be ruthless. They sacked Des Buckingham just seven months after he took them up, and Rowett may well face the same fate should Oxford’s position start to look hopeless. Their win at Bristol City lifted them out of the Championship relegation places, but they’re only so on goal difference.
5. Liam Manning
Manning is in part a victim of circumstance. Three of Norwich’s six matches so far this season have been at home and three have been away, but while the Canaries have been unbeaten on the road, with two wins and a draw, they’ve lost all three of their home matches and that, of course, is where the fans actually get to see them. Such a run has turned the heat up under Manning quite quickly, and it wouldn’t be surprising if he was no longer in his position by the end of this season. Still, though, following three largely mediocre seasons back in the Championship since their 2022 relegation from the Premier League, it is clear that Norwich demand improvement this season, and so far Manning hasn’t managed to deliver it.
4. John Eustace
Derby County’s close shave with relegation at the end of the 2024-25 season was supposed to be a one-off, but the Rams have struggled again so far this season and currently occupy the Championship’s third relegation place. They only escaped last time around on the last day of the season, and if things didn’t improve John Eustace could find himself a victim of the club’s ambition. Having only won once in their first six games of the season, and with Coventry having put five goals past them at Pride Park in August, John Eustace is a manager who may only be a handful of bad results from the push.
3. Phil Parkinson
The speculation has already started regarding the Wrexham manager Phil Parkinson, despite him being the man who’s masterminded their record-breaking ascent from the National League to the Championship. Results have improved a little, with two wins from their last three in the league and progress in the EFL Cup against Reading, but Wrexham’s vast global profile means intense scrutiny, all the more so because the club spent a lot of money this summer. Club legend Paul Mullin didn’t survive Wrexham’s post-promotion cull, so in no way can Phil Parkinson’s position be considered safe.
2. Will Still
Still’s first appointment as a head coach in the English game is not going according to plan. Southampton sit in 19th place in the Championship with just one win from their first six matches. All the worse, that win came on the opening weekend of the season, meaning that they’ve now gone five straight matches without a win. Still could find time running out quicker than he expected it to at St Mary’s, unless results start to significantly improve.
And in first place, to surely the surprise of absolutely nobody whatsoever, is Paulo Pezzolano of Watford. The Hornets have made a poor start to the season, and while the club’s ambitions may be somewhat more modest than Southampton’s, the owners of the club remain the Pozzos, and their trigger-happy attitude towards the hiring and firing of managers is already long-notorious.
Watford haven’t played below the top two divisions since 1998, and if there’s any chance whatsoever of relegation happening, we can be reasonably certain that the owners of the club will live up to their reputation. Pezzolano is another manager who needs a run of decent results if he’s to avoid the sack. He might not even get the opportunity to have that run.
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