Rafa Benitez leading the Sack Race

The first three Premiership rounds have generated a lot of excitement and even though it is still early in the season, some things are clearer after we have seen the teams play. Premiership sack race is as interesting as ever, but Rafa Benitez has, surprisingly or not, emerged as the hot favourite after Liverpool lost two of the first three league games, while Paul Hart and Phil Brown were among the candidates even before the season started.

Managers in the Premier League first need to thank their lucky stars that club owners in England have a lot more patience than their Italian counterparts that will not hesitate to sack a coach after two straight defeats whatever his name his. This is probably the only reason why Rafa Benitez is still the Liverpool boss, even though his supposedly title-chasing team have been utterly disappointing at the start of the new season. Considering the numerous altercations he had with owners Hicks and Gillett, no wonder that Rafa is the hot favourite to win the famous Sack Race. The odds on Benitez to be the first Premier League manager to get the boot are as high as 4.00 and those are some tempting betting odds.

Next up is probably everyone’s favourite Paul Hart, which is not surprising considering I am not quite clear how he got the job in the first place. Hart didn’t have enough resources to rebuild his team after seeing a couple of key players leave this summer, and he cannot really take all the blame for the poor results, although some of his decisions regarding team selection have been pretty strange. With Sheikh Suleiman Al Fahim set to complete the takeover of the club, Hart could easily be the first man to be shown the exit door.

My personal favourite is Phil Brown, although he is unlikely to win the race as Hull chairman Paul Duffen is still grateful to the boss for all he’s done at the club. The Tigers managed to record first win of the season by beating fellow strugglers Bolton, but Brown seems to have lost support of both the fans and players. He failed to lure some notable players to the club even though Hull had matched the asking price and he deserves to be sacked solely for missing out on Frazier Campbell. Brown had a bid accepted for the explosive striker but instead of jumping at the opportunity to conclude the deal, he opted to wait until the player returned from holiday and Campbell ended up going to Sunderland instead.

Gary Megson, Alex McLeish and Mark Hughes are also in the mix, but one of the aforementioned trio is likely to win the not-so-coveted award.

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