Football fans may be enjoying the latest round of Premier League fixtures but it’s all going a bit wrong for the UK Government at westminster.
Prime Minister Liz Truss has announced she will resign from the top job at 10 Downing Street after just 44 days in the role, making her the shortest PM in history who didn’t die in office. When the member for for South West Norfolk took over on September 6 the top flight season in English football had just completed its sixth round of fixtures for the 2022/23 season with results such as Man Utd handing Arsenal their only defeat of the campaign so far and Man City being held to a 1-1 draw by Aston Villa.
While it is obviously an incredibly short time to hold office, it would also be considered drastically minimal by the standards of top flight football managers, jobs that are quite often revolving doors with many clubs happy to pull the trigger on their head coaches without a second thought in the modern game. Using figures gathered by Four Four Two in 2021, we’ve taken a look at the shortest serving managers in the history of the Premier League and how much longer they lasted in their respective jobs than Truss did in Number 10.
Here are the ten shortest serving managers, in order from longest to shortest, in Premier League history:
9. Rene Meulensteen (Fulham - 75 days)
If you were to guess which club would have more than one name on this list you might have gone with the Cottagers’ London rivals Watford but the former Man Utd coach was at Fulham even less time than Ranieri | Getty Images
10. Les Reed (Charlton Athletic - 41 days)
The tenure of Liz Truss might have been laughably short (for those who can see the funny side) but she still lasted three days more as Prime Minister than Les Reed did as Charlton Athletic boss... small victories I guess! | Getty Images