The departure of 11 managers and head coaches from Premier League clubs during the 2025-2026 season has reopened a question about how clubs choose their managers: why are players usually excluded from the appointment process, when their confidence in the manager later becomes a factor in whether he stays or is dismissed?
Cox proposes an advisory role for players
Writer and tactical analyst Michael Cox proposes giving players a structured advisory role without transferring decision-making authority to them. A manager’s dismissal usually comes at the end of a repeated sequence of developments, beginning with results declining to a level the board cannot accept, followed by players losing confidence in the coaching staff, before the club announces that change has become necessary.
The rapid turnover of managers is usually attributed to owners’ and executives’ lack of patience, but Cox believes part of the problem may begin before the manager arrives, specifically when the decision is made to appoint him in the first place. Most dismissal decisions revolve around two main reasons: unacceptable results or the manager losing the dressing room’s confidence.
When the second reason is the main factor, blame quickly shifts to the players, who are accused of failing to perform or deliberately bringing down the manager, as if their position could only be explained by a desire to protect their own interests or remove a coaching staff they did not suit. Yet describing this phenomenon as ‘player power’ may oversimplify a more complex relationship.
Players are the ones who apply the manager’s ideas every day, test the quality of his training, assess how clear his instructions are, and judge his ability to read matches, manage individuals and deal with different personalities. Their loss of confidence in him may therefore indicate professional problems that have appeared on the pitch and at the training ground before the board is able to detect them. A player who reaches the Premier League possesses extensive experience that goes beyond technical ability.
Most players of the current generation joined academies at an early age, worked with multiple coaching staffs and trained within detailed tactical and physical systems. This experience, the argument goes, could make their assessment of a manager useful during the selection process, even if the sporting and executive leadership retains the right to make the final decision.
Survey reveals varying influence within clubs
Authority is not distributed in the same way at every club. The balance of influence varies, and football teams do not operate according to a single administrative hierarchy. In a survey conducted by The Athletic last January, its reporters were asked to identify the most important figure at each Premier League club, and the answers were divided among several figures within the sporting organisations.
Seven reporters chose the club owner as the most important figure, five named the manager, four named a player, and three chose the chief executive or someone in a similar role. At West Ham, the choice fell on the kit manager, an answer that, according to the analysis, reflected the disorder in the club’s internal structure during the previous season.
Importance does not necessarily mean holding executive authority, but the survey results show that influence within clubs is more flexible than official titles suggest. Despite this, players generally remain distant from the process of choosing the person who will determine their daily roles and affect their appearances and professional futures within the team.
The uncertainty surrounding the decision-making process is highlighted by the example of Chelsea. A supporter may know that the club appointed Xabi Alonso as manager during the summer, but may not know who actually made the decision, which criteria favoured the Spanish manager or which officials took part in assessing him. This shows that the appointment of a manager, despite its wide-ranging impact, usually takes place within a limited circle.
The common narrative tends to portray a player as concerned only with his place in the team and the terms of his contract, even though senior players accumulate knowledge of coaching methods, tactical work and dressing-room management throughout their careers. Some move into coaching or administration after retiring, drawing on experience gained over years of working under different coaching staffs.
Had major clubs formed advisory panels including players 10 or 15 years ago, Manchester United could have listened to Michael Carrick and Darren Fletcher, while Liverpool could have included Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher in its consultations. Arsenal could have benefited from the views of Mikel Arteta and Per Mertesacker, while Manchester City could have turned to Vincent Kompany and James Milner.
Not all of these players became successful managers, but their post-playing careers support the idea that a dressing room contains people capable of thinking about the needs of the team and the club, rather than only their own professional interests. By the same measure, if Arsenal needed to choose Arteta’s successor in future, it could consult Martin Ødegaard, Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka.
The idea could also be applied to players who have spent many years at their clubs and gained knowledge of their culture and environment, including Lewis Dunk at Brighton, Adam Smith at Bournemouth, John McGinn at Aston Villa and Tom Cairney at Fulham. Consulting them would not mean giving them the right to appoint the manager, but using their experience when assessing whether a candidate suits the team.
Involving players in some internal decisions is no longer entirely unfamiliar. Several teams allow their players to participate in choosing the captain and forming the leadership group in the dressing room. The appointment of the captain was previously considered a manager’s prerogative, before clubs adopted approaches that allowed players to vote or combined their views with the coaching staff’s decision.
A proposed mechanism for consulting the leadership group
If a club trusts its players to choose who represents them and speaks on their behalf, it could give the leadership group an advisory role in appointing the manager. The process could begin with the board drawing up a shortlist after assessing the candidates, then hearing from a selected group of players about their methods, personalities and compatibility with the team’s needs.
This formula would allow officials to retain decision-making authority while adding the knowledge of people who will work with the manager every day. Players may identify aspects that do not appear in a professional record or executive interviews, such as a candidate’s ability to communicate his ideas, persuade the group, deal with star players and turn his plans into training sessions that are clear and practical.
But giving players greater influence could lead them to favour names they know or people who have previously worked at the club. Arsenal players might have supported the return of their former team-mate Arteta to replace Unai Emery in 2019. Manchester United players might favour appointing Carrick, while Manchester City players might welcome Enzo Maresca, who had previously worked on the club’s coaching staff.
Players’ views could also protect clubs from appointments whose logic is not understood by members of the squad. When Manchester United chose Ralf Rangnick, Cristiano Ronaldo later expressed his surprise at the decision because the German had worked more as a sporting director than as a coach in the period before joining the club.
By contrast, a preference for familiar names carries clear risks. If Arsenal players had wielded broad influence in the mid-1990s, they might have rejected Arsène Wenger, who was not known in England at the time. He later became the club’s longest-serving manager and helped change working methods in English football.
Wenger’s experience highlights the risks of familiar names
The Wenger example underlines the need to combine the board’s expertise with players’ views, rather than giving either side sole authority. Officials may have a broader understanding of the market, the financial plan and the long-term project, while players can assess the daily, technical and personal aspects that will shape the manager’s relationship with the team. Player involvement also raises the problem of conflicts of interest.
Experienced players may oppose a candidate who wants to reduce their roles or rebuild the team without them. A player may favour a manager suited to his own qualities and current position, while the club’s interests may be tied to a different project requiring a change in playing style or reliance on a new generation. The period of John Terry, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba at Chelsea illustrates the complexity of dressing-room influence.
Some managers tried to move towards a new generation but came up against the weight of the senior players and left the club before those stars departed. At the same time, the team reached the Champions League final under Avram Grant and then won the competition with Roberto Di Matteo. Di Matteo was a former Chelsea player who rose from assistant manager to lead a group whose most prominent players wielded considerable influence.
The experience shows that a powerful dressing room can obstruct some projects of change, but it can also help deliver success when players work with a manager capable of using their experience and influence for the team’s benefit. Appointing a manager remains a long-term sporting and commercial decision that requires consideration of contracts, budgets, professional records and the candidate’s compatibility with the club’s strategy.
These matters fall within the responsibilities of the sporting and executive leadership, while players can provide direct knowledge of the demands of the pitch and training, as well as relationships within the dressing room. The proposed formula therefore involves giving players a defined advisory role, governed by clear safeguards and sought at an advanced stage of the selection process.
This opinion could help identify problems linked to a candidate’s personality, methods or ability to persuade the team, without becoming a right to appoint or object to the board’s decision. If players’ loss of confidence is a recurring reason for managers’ dismissal, consulting them before a contract is signed could give clubs an additional perspective overlooked by owners and sporting officials.
Rather than waiting for the relationship to collapse and then accusing players of bringing down the manager, the board could listen to them early while retaining full responsibility for the appointment and its consequences.
