Chapter 5 has focused on measuring the football manager's contribution to the performance of his team. Using production frontier analysis it is possible to rank managers by their estimated efficiency scores, which measure performance relative to the quality of the playing resources each manager had at his disposal. But while the measurement of managerial efficiency is an interesting exercise, it does not necessarily capture every aspect of a manager's performance. Many times, a manager who was deemed a hero yesterday has been transformed into a villain today, and all football followers know that one of the most enduring characteristics of the football manager's position is its chronic insecurity. Chapter 6 therefore investigates the relationship between managerial change and team performance.

The chapter begins in section 6.1 with some tabulations, which describe a number of features of this relationship. The factors that are critical in triggering the decision, taken either by the club or by the manager himself, to terminate a manager's appointment are then investigated more systematically in sections 6.2–6.5. Previous findings from the US literature are reviewed in section 6.2, while technical issues involved in specifying managerial job-departure hazard functions, which identify the probabilities of involuntary or voluntary job departure, are covered in section 6.3. Empirical managerial job-departure hazard functions for English football are presented in sections 6.4–6.5. These show the extent to which team performance, both in the short term and in the long term, tends to influence the decision to terminate a manager's appointment.