New campaigns bring hope but sometimes clubs act swiftly when early results or boardroom disputes threaten momentum. The following cases record the earliest managerial departures in Premier League history, ranked by games played at the opening of a season.<\/p>\n
Watford, 2018\u201319 \u2014 Games lasted: 4, Date sacked: September 4
\nGracia began 2018\u201319 with four wins from four and a third-place position. The side finished the season in 11th after being seventh as late as Gameweek 34 and suffered a joint-biggest FA Cup final defeat to Manchester City. The club dismissed him four games into the next season after Watford had taken just one point. Still, he lasted longer than most.<\/p>\n
Bournemouth, 2021\u201322 \u2014 Games lasted: 4, Date sacked: August 30
\nParker had secured promotion to the Premier League three times as a manager but struggled to establish a top-flight methodology. His tenure ended after a 9\u20130 defeat at Anfield, the joint-heaviest loss in Premier League history.<\/p>\n
Newcastle United, 2004\u201305 \u2014 Games lasted: 4, Date sacked: August 30
\nSir Bobby Robson was dismissed 16 days into the season amid reported player discontent. Former chairman Freddy Shepherd likened sacking Robson to \u201cshooting Bambi.\u201d<\/p>\n
Manchester City, 1993\u201394 \u2014 Games lasted: 4, Date sacked: August 26
\nPlayer-manager Reid was dismissed 12 days into the campaign after City earned a single point from their first four fixtures, and the fast start by champions Manchester United across town convinced the club to act.<\/p>\n
Nottingham Forest, 2025\u201326 \u2014 Games lasted: 4, Date sacked: September 9
\nNuno, who returned European football to the City Ground for the first time in almost 30 years and led Forest to a seventh-place finish in 2024\u201325, left after a summer of unrest following Evangelos Marinakis\u2019s appointment of Edu Gaspar as Global Head of Football. The manager and the new executive reportedly fell out and were not on speaking terms. The club went on to appoint Ange Postecoglou.<\/p>\n
Earlier and shorter spells include Tottenham Hotspur in 1998\u201399, Newcastle United in 2008\u201309 and 1997\u201398, and West Ham United in 2008\u201309, where managers left within the first three games of those campaigns. \u201cAnd even Christian Gross…\u201d, the draft of that era summed up the uncertainty in north London.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Earliest Premier League sackings, ordered by season and games played at the campaign start. 2025\/26.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2641,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194,298,969],"tags":[957,593,965],"class_list":["post-2642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newcastle-united","category-nottingham-forest","category-premier-league","tag-ange-postecoglou","tag-ballon-dor","tag-daniel-levy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}