Nine New Bosses: The Premier League Managerial Merry-Go-Round Reaches Record Levels

Nine clubs will begin this Premier League season with a new manager in the dugout. Discover why 2026-27 marks one of the biggest managerial shake-ups ever.

Spoiler alert: football managers do not last very long. It’s not the occupation for you if job security is of any importance.

Nowhere is that more apparent than in the Premier League. The average top-flight manager in England now lasts around 20 months in the job, highlighting just how short-lived life can be in one of football’s most demanding roles.

But no recent off-season has seen the managerial merry-go-round spin quite as fast as the one preceding the 2026-27 campaign.

Of the 17 clubs that played in the Premier League last season and are back for this one, seven have already changed their manager/head coach. That will rise to eight once Newcastle United name the successor to Eddie Howe, expected to be Matthias Jaissle.

More on Howe’s Departure:

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One of the newly-promoted teams changed managers too, with Gary O’Neil taking over from Kieran McKenna at Ipswich Town.

That means almost half the division will begin the new season under new leadership, with nine clubs in total changing managers:

Bournemouth: Marco RoseChelsea: Xabi AlonsoCrystal Palace: Pierre SageFulham: Álvaro ArbeloaIpswich Town: Gary O’NeilLiverpool: Andoni IraolaManchester City: Enzo MarescaNewcastle: Matthias Jaissle*Nottingham Forest: Oliver Glasner

*yet to be officially announced.

Nine managers taking charge of their first league game with a club on the opening weekend will be the most in a top-flight season since 1946-47, the first campaign after the Second World War.

The only other exception is 1888-89, the inaugural season of the Football League, when every club naturally began with a new manager.

Five of the nine coaches have never even taken charge of a Premier League match before: Rose, Alonso, Sage, Arbeloa and Jaissle. Add Hull City‘s Sergej Jakirović to that list and there will be six managers making their Premier League debut on Matchday 1.

That equals the competition record, previously set in both 1995-96 and 2016-17. The latter group included Mike Phelan, Aitor Karanka, Claude Puel, Walter Mazzarri, Pep Guardiola and Antonio Conte. It’s fair to say a few of them left a longer-lasting legacy than others.

The scale of this managerial turnover is historic. And it’s done some pretty wild things to the overall picture of the league, in terms of the length of tenure of every current Premier League boss:

Michael Carrick, who only took over at Manchester United in January of this year, is already the league’s 10th longest-serving manager.

Marco Rose has yet to oversee a competitive match for Bournemouth, but he’s already the 12th longest-serving manager in the division. He’s been in post for just over two months.

Just five managers – Mikel Arteta, Unai Emery, Daniel Farke, Fabian Hürzeler and Régis Le Bris – have been at their clubs for two full seasons.

That level of churn only adds to the intrigue surrounding the new campaign, particularly with three of the league’s traditional heavyweights, Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea, all beginning new eras under different managers.

History suggests immediate success is hard to come by. Across Premier League history, only seven managers have won the title in their first season at a club, with Arne Slot’s triumph at Liverpool in 2024-25 the most recent example.

The fact Slot was dismissed just 12 months after winning the title in his very first season underlines just how unforgiving modern management is. Even winning the Premier League, the literal thing managers at top clubs are brought in to do, is no guarantee of longevity.

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