How much time should a manager be given?

[Smiley Culture]

In light of the whole Frank De Boer and Crystal Palace debacle, I want to know how much time is enough for a manager to prove his worth at a club? How long should they be given?

[Danny]

I think it's dependant, I think a minimum is 2 seasons. It's long enough to see where the manager is looking to take the team. However I think if it calls for it then you have to sack them regardless of time, sometimes an owner will know when a mistake has been made but this shouldn't be often.

I'm surprised manager's are still used so often, a DoF approach would offer more stability.

[Stan]

2 hours ago, Smiley Culture said:

In light of the whole Frank De Boer and Crystal Palace debacle, I want to know how much time is enough for a manager to prove his worth at a club? How long should they be given?

Too many factors and variables to give a definitive amount of time.

Having said that, it's unfair for someone to be given an unrealistically short time like De Boer had. There can be some mitigating circumstances whereby a manager could be dismissed (bust up with the chairman, bad conduct etc) but that doesn't seem to be the case with him. Sounds like Palace had realised they fucked up with De Boer and wanted him out sooner rather than later and not giving him faith and time to be the manager he wants to be. The odd thing about this is they must have known De Boer's tactical choices and way of wanting to play, unless he said one thing and did another. 

Despite the first sentence, I'd be inclined to give someone in the region of 9-12 months to establish themselves with some level of competency and then use that as a foundation to improve for whatever length of time if possible. Obviously if it's gone terrible in the first 9-12 months and they've not been able to take the club forward and are actually regressing, then there probably isn't much choice but to get rid of someone.

Then there's other factors like transfer business and if they actually get on with the players. There's so much talk of how managers can lose dressing rooms and then players stop responding to them, or managers not being to handle certain egos of players. Are they the right person to take the club forward?

[Harry]

Yeah there are a lot of variables. I'd still say a 1 year minimum though and really if you are competent in selecting your manager in the first place it should never need to be shorter than that.

[SirBalon]

There are many factors relating to how long a coach should be given depending on the project and what the targets were.  In some situations you can see where it's all going straight away and in others that are more complicated like opting for a philosophy that changes everything that's ever been attempted at a club can take a lot of time and patience is required.  You can't just give a limited amount of games off the cuff for every situation.