On May 7 2016, I watched Andrea Bocelli serenade the Leicester crowd as their team were crowned Premier League champions, having pulled off one of the great sporting upsets.
Manager Claudio Ranieri proudly paraded the trophy to all four stands while the supporters sang his name with unconfined joy.
The club owners came on to the pitch and celebrated with their manager. Everything seemed perfect.
I jokingly said to the group I was watching it with, “They will sack Ranieri next season!” – oh, how we laughed. Nine months later, Ranieri was gone, and I realised that nothing in the hiring and firing of managers would surprise me again.
In November 2019, Tottenham sacked Mauricio Pochettino after he had guided them to four successive top-four Premier League finishes and the Champions League final.
I wrote a column when speculation about his sacking was beginning, urging Spurs and Poch to find an amicable way to end their relationship before things turned sour.
But as the weeks went by, results didn’t improve, and he was given the boot.
Now it’s the turn of Marcelo Bielsa to pack his bags, despite him taking Leeds from a struggling Championship side to a ninth-place finish in the Premier League in just three seasons, ending a 16-year absence from the top flight into the bargain.
Bielsa parting company with Leeds feels like the starkest reminder yet that, while there is some room for loyalty and sentiment in football, owners choose not to use it.
Leeds fans still love Bielsa, despite a string of horrific results, which have seen their team concede 17 goals and score just two in the last four matches.
It is a run that has seen United get just one point in six games and dragged Leeds into a relegation battle – but the supporters didn’t seem to mind. They adored Bielsa even when he lost.
I think they would be in love with him even if he hadn’t been able to keep them in the Premier League.
While Tottenham fans doted over Pochettino, it was hard to forge an unbreakable bond with him, given he didn’t actually win anything.
Likewise, while Ranieri will retain legendary status at the King Power Stadium forever, it’s hard to say that the deepest of bonds were made, given that he was only at Leicester for 18 months.
But with Bielsa and Leeds, despite their dramatic slide down the table and serious questions being raised over the coaching of their defence, most fans wanted him to stay.
So, if the fans didn’t want Marcelo Bielsa out and the consensus was that Leeds would survive the drop despite their precarious-looking situation, I would have asked the owners, “Why are you getting rid of him?”
And I expect their short-sighted answer would be: ‘Well, what has he done for us lately?’ – because, sadly, that’s football nowadays.
