#managerial-changes

#managerial-changes

We can confirm that it has been mutually agreed for head coach Igor Tudor to leave the club with immediate effect. We also acknowledge the bereavement that Igor has recently suffered and send our support to him and his family at this difficult time.

It is no surprise that Aberdeen have made major changes to their recruitment team again. Nuno de Almeida has left and Darren Mowbray has returned as head of recruitment. It was hardly the biggest surprise when the Dons announced the news on Tuesday night. Everybody knew the writing had been on the wall for de Almeida.

After missing out on the Championship play-offs last season under Johannes Hoff Thorup, the Carrow Road hierarchy initially looked to hometown head coach, Liam Manning, as the man who could replicate his top six berth with divisional rivals, Bristol City, in East Anglia. However, as proved to be the case with the aforementioned Hoff Thorup, Manning lasted just a matter of months into a four-year contract.

It is not easy to analyze a team that has just changed its coach. The system changes, but the players do not. We looked at the players and their individual performances in the last two days. Each player has a certain template, they can't change it. We focused on this kind of analysis.

Manchester United haven't had much luck against West Ham of late. This fixture last season was the straw that did for Erik ten Hag's camel and West Ham nearly saw off Ten Hag's successor in short order when completing the league double over Manchester United towards the tail end of the campaign but Amorim held on. For a bit. He'd last barely a month after this and so now West Ham are in a position where they're facing a third Manchester United manager in 14 months.

Following words with decisive action is often a lot harder, however, in such a short and pressurised period of time, as witnessed by the fact that four clubs either sacked or lost their managers, which does not exactly speak of good planning. Finding realistic needle-moving signings is especially hard when clubs do not want to sell at this stage of a campaign, while you are eternally at the mercy of those with bigger teeth and sharper claws further up the food chain.

With all the January transfer window talk, it is sometimes easy to forget that football matches are indeed actually won and lost on that green thing. The chaotic and unpredictable EFL continues to deliver for better or worse depending on your allegiances. With West Bromwich Albion on a downward spiral, Liam Manning back in work at Huddersfield and the small matter of the first south coast derby in a league fixture at Fratton Park for more than 14 years,

Robbie Neilson will hold further talks with Kilmarnock on Monday regarding the vacant managerial position at Rugby Park. (Ewan Paton on X), external Westerlo head coach Issame Charai, formerly the assistant at Rangers, says the Ibrox club have not bid for 22-year-old left-back Tuur Rommens as yet. (Sun), external Motherwell manager Jens Berthel Askou has spoken to midfielder Elliot Watt, 25, about reported interest from Rangers.