Jim's column 28.2.15

Last Saturday's 2-2 draw at Bramall Lane together with results elsewhere pushed Coventry City into the bottom four of League One & precipitated the departure of Steven Pressley, after two years in charge. I think it is always sad when a Coventry City manager leaves the club in these circumstances but especially so in the case of Steven. There is no question that he worked tremendously hard to achieve success for the club & he unquestionably had his share of bad luck but ultimately it is about results & no club can afford relegation from any division these days with the financial rewards & crowds usually dropping after a demotion. Every manager is under pressure & with few exceptions, forced to work with a lower budget than they would wish for. The number of managerial casualties increases every season – a staggering 17 managers have left their posts in the Championship this campaign.

Steven took over as manager in March 2013 after Mark Robins jumped ship to join Huddersfield & had his best period in the first half of last season when boosted by the goalscoring feats of Callum Wilson & Leon Clarke, the team quickly wiped off the ten point deduction & at one stage looked set for a play-off challenge. His decision to give Wilson his chance, when others preferred Shaun Jeffers, is probably his greatest legacy at the club. Last season he was hamstrung in the transfer market & forced to play his inherited players, some of whom he clearly didn't fancy, but when the handcuffs came off a number of his loan players were disappointing.

Last summer he was again hampered in the transfer market but his signings have, with a couple of exceptions, been poor & although the defence has looked more secure he never remotely got close to replacing Clarke & Wilson.

At Bramall Lane a two-goal lead against the ten-man Blades was thrown away – not for the first time on Pressley's watch. Last season two-goal leads were frittered against Bradford & Crawley with woeful defending.

Steven had exactly 100 games in charge (87 league & 13 cup) – only four managers since 1986 have had more (Sillett, Adams, Strachan & Coleman). His league record in the same period the stats rank him as 11^th out of 18 managers for win percentage, appreciably better than Messrs McAllister, Thorn & Atkinson. His home form was the Achilles heel however, with only fifteen victories out of 43 games (34%) but he is not alone in this – only Roland Nilsson out of the 18 managers had a better than 50% win ratio at home.

	CCFC managers since 1986
		Games	W	D	L	Wins %
1	Mark Robins	25	13	5	7	52.00%
2	Eric Black	23	11	3	9	47.83%
3	Roland Nilsson	40	19	5	16	47.50%
4	Iain Dowie	43	16	9	18	37.21%
5	Micky Adams	90	31	24	35	34.44%
6	John Sillett	128	44	37	47	34.38%
7	Terry Butcher	49	16	11	22	32.65%
8	Phil Neal	58	18	18	22	31.03%
9	Peter Reid	29	9	8	12	31.03%
10	Aidy Bothroyd	36	11	8	17	30.56%
11	Steven Pressley	87	26	28	33	29.89%
12	Bobby Gould	54	16	19	19	29.63%
13	Gordon Strachan	183	52	52	79	28.42%
14	Chris Coleman	107	30	35	42	28.04%
15	Gary McAllister	68	17	25	26	25.00%
16	Ron Atkinson	64	14	24	26	21.88%
17	Andy Thorn	59	12	21	26	20.34%
18	Don Howe	19	3	8	8	15.79%
	League games only

The goal-glut at the start of last season means that Pressley's goals per game is the fourth best of the 18 – only Robins, Black & Nilsson had better scoring rates. Steven's cup record was a mixed bag also. Only six of the 13 ties was won & five of the victories were against lower opposition with the win at Barnsley in last season's FA Cup a rare highlight. This season's defeat to Worcester has to go down as one of the worst results in the club's Cup history.

Craig Richards asked if City managers had been sacked in previous relegation seasons. The club have only been relegated four times in their league history, in 1925, 1952, 2001 & 2012. In 1925 manager Albert Evans was fired in the November with secretary Harry Harbourne taking over the reins. In 1952 the great Harry Storer was in charge & survived a further fifteen months after relegation. In 2001 & 2012, Gordon Strachan & Andy Thorn were respectively sacked a few games into the following season.

On Saturday Sheffield United's Jose Baxter became the first opposition player to be shown a red card since January last year when Preston's Kevin Davies was sent off at Deepdale. In the time since then the Sky Blues have had six men ordered off – a pretty frightening statistic. Baxter's red card came in the 19^th minute – the quickest opponent's dismissal since August 2011 when Leicester’s Darius Vassell was ordered off after only 10 minutes.