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MAURICIO Pellegrino has the rare luxury of patience at Saints where his fellow Premier League managers – with very similar records – have not.
Pellegrino has an identical record to this season’s latest managerial casualty Mark Hughes – and there’s not much to choose between him and other sacked bosses, either.
Hughes, 54, became the seventh boss to be sacked in the notoriously impatient top-flight this campaign, leaving Stoke 18th in the Premier League after collecting 20 points from 22 games.
Aside from a superior goal difference, Saints have an identical record to the Potters this term and are currently 17th in the table, but are still standing by their manager.
What’s more, Pellegrino has led Saints to just seven points in their last 10 league matches, which is the same as Hughes achieved before getting the chop at the weekend following a 2-1 defeat at League Two Coventry City in the FA Cup.
As can be viewed in the inset table, Pellegrino’s recent record is very comparable to the six other sacked men and Hughes.
It’s also far poorer than predecessor Claude Puel’s final ten games, in which Saints collected 11 points.
Having collected nine points from ten matches – two more points than Pellegrino’s recent record – Slaven Bilic was axed by West Ham in early November and replaced by David Moyes.
Meanwhile, Ronald Koeman picked up eight points from his nine top-flight games in charge this term before being dismissed by Everton in October.
Craig Shakespeare was given eight games, from which he managed to lead Leicester City to six points – drawing three, winning one and losing four – before being sacked.
The first deperture of the season, Frank De Boer, was given the boot following five straight defeats at Crystal Palace in September, while Paul Clement was shown the door at Swansea following four points in his final 10 games just last month.
Despite, the obviously similar records to some of these sacked men, Pellegrino has kept his job – and has the backing of the chairman of Ralph Krueger at that.
Krueger explained in a recent interview that so far the team has struggled partly because of Virgil van Dijk’s tumultuous transfer stand-off, which ended with the Dutchman moving to Liverpool for £75m this month.
He said: “A plan was put in place right after the season to consolidate where we were and the transfer that has just gone through is the end of a very difficult phase for the club.
“Mauricio was a part of it, and we were all a part of it, including the team and the players.
“I in no way, shape, or form, am angry at any one individual for what has happened here in the last few months, because it was bigger than any individual, in our club or outside of our club. That chapter closes now.
“The cloud was there, we allowed a certain negativity into our very fragile environment, which is based on positivity, on looking for solutions, on creativity and so on, and I believe we can truly get back to that now.”
It means Pellegrino has the luxury of time and patience where others haven’t had that – and it scarcely looks warranted at this stage with Saints struggling near the bottom of the league.
However, Saints plan to back their manager in the transfer window with the hope that he can change the team’s ailing fortunes after one victory in ten league games.
Otherwise, he’ll likely add to the growing number of sacked managers.
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