OTB Football
WOTS | Ep.35 'Sacked in the morning?" | "In rugby they use the term 'let go'" | More patience? | Word On The Street
22 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What recent events have led to discussions about manager sackings?
Football on Off the Ball. Old detective, I can see it now. I don't know who would you have Poirot in there. I mean, unfortunately, you know, someone told me on X the other day, you know, they think they're Poirot, but they're actually Clouseau. Join in the obsession. Subscribe now at offtheball.com forward slash join.
I think they'll go all the way to the final, to be honest. Really? Yeah. I believe in my county and I suppose they're good at football, they just have to believe in themselves. I love playing 12, I love playing 10. I love being on the pitch, to be honest. Are you confident?
Absolutely not.
Thank you for all the supporters.
Chapter 2: How does the public perceive the need for patience with sports managers?
Thank you for the team. Thank you France. Merci la France. Merci les baguettes. Merci les croissants. Je vous aime. I love you.
Hello, hello. Susanna here. Welcome along to Word on the Street, which is the podcast where we basically go out on the street and we get people's opinions around sporting topics and we bring them back in to chat about. So I'm here with Yves and Rachel as always. How are we? I'm actually quite good.
Yeah?
Yeah.
Chapter 3: What are the differences between football and rugby coaching structures?
I'm really good as well. I've had a nice week. Yeah, the whole Blue Monday kicked things off and it was just like the worst weather the third week of January. Is this going to be really bleak? But it's actually been a bit of a bit of a buzzy week. Maybe it's because I was expecting it to be so bad that now I've had like an ambivalent week.
I'm kind of like, OK, I'm happy. The weather was pretty awful. It hasn't stopped raining. I currently have a leak in like the side of my house. Oh no. And I live alone. So I had to deal with a bunch of adult things because the ceiling of my bedroom And it's pooling in the ceiling of my bedroom. And there was just suddenly massive stains.
Chapter 4: How does player power influence managerial decisions in football?
Have you seen Marty Supreme yet? No spoilers, but you need to be careful. I was terrified. The first night I slept in a different room because I was like, what if it caves in on me and I die? Then I called a plumber. It turns out it wasn't a plumber issue. So they were like, call a builder. So then I had to figure out how to call a builder.
And then the builder was like, well, I can't do anything till it stops raining. You have a fixed house in May. Meanwhile, the water just keeps pooling on the top of my roof. I've also, sorry, not to be down on the dumps on your great weeks, but I'm not having a very good week. You really aren't. Do we need to move this offline, Susanna? No, but my toe.
Chapter 5: What impact does the 'new manager bounce' have on team performance?
You've all witnessed me. I've got a really injured toe and I'm quite embarrassed about it because I did it playing tag rugby where a large man, we play mixed tag, and a large man stepped on my foot. And it doesn't sound like it should be a bad injury, but I can't walk. No, but it happened twice, you know?
It did happen twice.
On the same toe.
The odds of that are so slim.
I know. And everyone keeps being like, why don't you go to a doctor? Yeah, I keep saying, why don't you go to a doctor? But the reason is, I'll tell you, it's also a bit embarrassing. I have the Six Nations launch this weekend in Edinburgh. And the thought of having to go in a boot...
And the players, the likes of Caelan Dorris or Antoine Dupont, turning to me and being like, what do you do to yourself? And I go, oh, yeah, in the non-contact version of your sport, someone stood on me.
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Chapter 6: Why do some coaches have longer tenures in rugby compared to football?
Well, do you know what? And I'm crippled. Yeah, that's where you have to embellish. I think it's a conversation starter. But before we move on, because we will move on, it's better than my story of when I was working in my local newspaper and covering the local elections a couple of years ago. And I sprained my wrist when someone shook my hand. What? Some politician got elected.
I'm not going to say which politician got elected, but he was a large man. And he shook my hand. He was very excited, a lot of adrenaline. And he shook my hand so much that it bent the wrong way. And I was in work the next week with a cast on my, like a support on my wrist because I sprained it. That is worse. So, yes, whenever I see him in the news, he's like, well, no, local politicians.
Chapter 7: How does financial pressure affect decisions in professional sports?
I'm just like, ah. Did he know what he did to you?
No, no, I didn't want it because he didn't do it on purpose. I didn't want to splash it across the headlines. Maybe like drink some more milk. Maybe a calcium deficiency.
Local politician breaks wrist of local reporter now. Oh, gosh. But I'm fine now and you'll be fine soon. I will be. Hopefully it's not broken. I'll update you next week if I ever go to the doctor. But this is episode 35 and we're calling it Sacked in the Morning. And it's basically around all the managers in football and coaches in rugby to a certain extent losing their jobs recently.
It feels like there's been a whole rake of them.
Chapter 8: What lessons can be learned from the GAA's approach to coaching patience?
There has been, and actually very good that you said that because I have a question for you. Obviously I'm coming from a very, very football background and some people are football managers, some people are football head coaches. I think Ruben Amram at Man United wanted to be a manager, but he was a head coach. In rugby, are they called managers? Are they called head coaches?
They're called head coaches. But then you have a few rare cases where... where you have a director of rugby, which is a relatively new thing. You have it in Leinster. So Leo Cullen, who everybody thinks of as the head coach, is actually the director of rugby, I believe. And then, sorry, no, he is the head coach, but he doesn't do the traditional head coach roles.
Jack Nienabar, who is the director of rugby, just to make it more complicated, he does what a traditional... head coach would do in terms of on the pitch, kind of what the players are doing, what systems they're using. Whereas Leo Cullen does all the... I'm sure he has some control over that, but he does all the kind of media appearances and managing the business as well.
Leo Cullen is like Catherine Connolly and... is like the Taoiseach maybe you know is it that kind of like figurehead position where it's like oh yeah I'm the president of Ireland but I don't have much control over what goes on here I'll give you that except I think Leo probably has more input and power than Catherine Cullen So switch it around Leo Cullen is the Taoiseach
No, no, no. I think she's right. I just think there's a little bit less of a... A t-shirt and a tarnisher. A little bit less of a power imbalance. Yeah. That was very good. And then I think Razzy Erasmus technically also has a different title. He's not head coach, but... It's like LinkedIn, you know.
Like, oh, I'm the vice president, VP, director, CEO.
But essentially there is no manager. OK, because I think what we're seeing in so much in football with managers being sacked recently. So you have Ruben Amaran at Man United, you have Xabi Alonso at Real Madrid, Wilfred Nancy at Celtic.
is that there's a lot of pressure and friction between perhaps what a manager slash head coach wants to be, what the owners of the club want them to be and what the players want as well. And you're seeing a lot of player power and pressure from above. And this is all kind of coming together in one big ball of action.
stress and the managers are kind of falling victims and they're getting sacked because if you're not winning games or if you're not winning games in the manner that the head honchos think you're supposed to be there's very little patience yeah um speaking of amram we were chatting to someone out on the streets this morning um and i can't remember what he had to say so let's play the clip
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