Luis Enrique has suggested six-month contracts would save money for clubs and could be the way forward, even helping both clubs and managers in certain situations.
It seems like a bad idea to me.
Any manager on a six-month contract knowing he can be shown the door as soon as possible will only work on a short-term basis and won’t be able do anything long term. Managers are already fighting for their jobs on a daily basis as we see that a manager’s tenure in the PL was lasting an average of 1.23 years.
Can anyone build a team, implement their coaching philosophy and get results in under six months? The answer might be yes for 10% of the managers.
If 90% of the managers are shown the door when they “fail” after six months, football teams will have no stability and I have no doubt that the football quality would deteriorate quickly. Unless you enjoy the Charles Hughes football brand of course
Then what about the players? You cannot expect any loyalty from if they feel the manager is nearly gone already. You cannot build a trust relationship with them and make the team play the way you want it to play.
Of course, you also have the owners who are in many cases happy to pull the trigger as soon as the team hit a rough spot. It feels like losing one game is bad, two is a huge problem and three well the bullet chamber is loaded.
Those six months contracts would be a dream for them, dispensing managers like a kleenex tissue at no cost. That would put the owners in charge of the team rather than the manager himself: an absurd concept.
Without a strong and stable technical direction, the “win at all cost, right here, right now” mentality will be the norm and you can guess the effect on the football quality.
Think about youth team football where managers are hell bent on getting results rather than developing their players.
In theory, six-month contracts for managers could be a good idea but because clueless owners tend to press the ejector seat button way too quickly, chaos would follow very quickly.