Five under-pressure Premier League managers with much convincing to do

Every football manager is under pressure but, for some in the Premier League, the pressure is more acute. The season opens this weekend with its customary brew of hope and expectation among supporters, and perhaps anxiety in certain dugouts given the need to correct last season’s wrongs, justify major expenditure or – as at Leicester City, Watford, Newcastle United and West Ham United – to demonstrate the new man in charge is also the right one. Eight clubs changed their manager in the Premier League last season with the average tenure of managers across all four divisions the shortest since 1992 at 1.23 years. Here we look at the coaches who will be under fierce scrutiny from day one …

Brendan Rodgers Liverpool

Rodgers is the bookmakers’ favourite to win this season’s sack race and not simply on the basis he is in charge of a major club with constant expectation but no Champions League football.

Rodgers survived a review with the club’s owner, Fenway Sports Group, into the causes of last season’s deflating, chaotic campaign, one preceded by the biggest spending spree in Liverpool’s history – £117m on nine players – but which yielded disappointment domestically and in Europe and culminated in a 6-1 humiliation at Stoke City. The assistant manager Colin Pascoe and first-team coach Mike Marsh were the ones who paid with their jobs, with Rodgers claiming he wanted to take Liverpool in a “new technical direction”. FSG has again backed its manager’s plans in the transfer market, acquiring seven new faces this time around while recouping £49m of their outlay by selling Raheem Sterling to Manchester City.

The club has acted decisively and more logically than last summer to address the obvious shortcomings in attack and at right-back although after what unfolded last term, there will be little patience for any talk of transition. Christian Benteke and Roberto Firmino are not the only ones required to make an immediate impression. Rodgers returns to the Britannia Stadium on Sunday needing to bury last season’s nightmare and to demonstrate evidence of progress.

Claudio Ranieri Leicester City

Leicester’s Thai owners are backing their new manager in the transfer market but supporters’ faith in the 63-year-old Italian appears to be on hold. And understandably so.

Ranieri’s extensive list of managerial posts – this summer’s return to the Premier League is the 16th job of his career – reads far more impressively than his track record and he was sacked from his last position as the Greece manager having failed to win a game. That brief spell included a defeat by the Faroe Islands. But it is not simply a reputation the 63-year-old Italian has to repair.

Leicester’s escapology act under Nigel Pearson was one of the most remarkable achievements of the last Premier League season, the evident spirit within the squad and belief in the confrontational manager’s methods to the fore. Then Pearson was gone, sacked because of “fundamental differences in perspective” that may or may not have stemmed from his son being one of three players sacked for making a racist sex tape on an end-of-season “goodwill” tour of Thailand.

The brains of last season’s team, Esteban Cambiasso, also left the club this summer and threatens to leave a significant void in midfield. Ranieri needs to capitalise on an inviting start, beginning with Sunderland at home on Saturday, to get fans and players onside for the difficult second-season campaign.

Manuel Pellegrini Manchester City

Everyone knows the script at the Etihad Stadium by now – the Chilean serves out the final year of his contract with the 2013-14 Premier League champions before making way for Pep Guardiola next summer. But the script rarely unfolds as planned in football.

As recent history and this summer’s £49m signing of Raheem Sterling demonstrate, Manchester City are not a club that tread water or will wait for an improvement on last season’s deterioration in the league. Khaldoon al-Mubarak, the City chairman, made that abundantly clear in June. “I can assure you this squad will be stronger and the team will be more competitive,” he said. “The energy right now is positive energy towards getting back on track and winning back that Premier League and getting a better performance in the Champions League. That is absolutely what is driving us right now.”

Pellegrini’s position was under scrutiny throughout a weak defence of the title characterised by some fundamental problems – from Vincent Kompany’s form at the heart of the defence to the cumulative effect of too many modest signings. City insisted their manager’s job was safe and were true to their word, although the demand for recovery is immediate. The 61-year-old can ill-afford signs of complacency creeping into a squad who must suspect they will be playing for a different manager from next season.

Roberto Martínez Everton

With the exception of an end-of-season review with his employer or having almost £200m to spend on 16 new players in the last two summers, the Everton manager finds himself in a similar predicament to his rival across Stanley Park. In terms of tactics, philosophies, the loss of faith among supporters and an ominous opening run of fixtures, Martínez and Brendan Rodgers have to quickly restore confidence in their methods after last season’s setbacks.

Goodison Park was openly hostile towards the manager’s possession-based game when it was nullified with increasing ease last term and the lack of investment in his squad – with Everton the lowest-spending Premier League club so far this summer – hardly equates to boardroom backing for the former Wigan Athletic manager.

Martínez’s belief in his approach remained absolute even while Everton slipped towards relegation trouble last season, his team finished 11th after a fifth-placed end to his first campaign, and his own players spoke openly about the need for different tactics. Eight of Everton’s opening 10 matches are against teams who finished above them last time out. The visit of promoted Watford for Saturday’s opening game therefore demands a maximum return.

Steve McClaren Newcastle United

He is not John Carver and Mike Ashley finally seems to be looking long-term with almost £35m spent on players this summer, but that is not to say the former England manager is without pressure at St James’ Park.

His is the pressure of having to rebuild a community’s faith in its football club over again. The attacking midfielder Georginio Wijnaldum, the striker Aleksandar Mitrovic and the defender Chancel Mbemba represent the new brigade at Newcastle but this remains a squad who were fortunate to remain in the Premier League and, in tandem with the club’s ownership, disillusioned an entire support base.

For all the experience of England and of winning the Dutch league with FC Twente that McClaren can bring to his first Premier League manager’s job in nine years, his time at Derby County ended sourly as the Championship club tumbled out of both the promotion and play-off places.

Newcastle need the stability McClaren can offer but also a belief that genuine intent is returning to St James’; that the days of just doing enough to survive in the league are over. In that respect, there is great responsibility on McClaren’s shoulders.