PLAYING under four managers in one season usually only ends in one thing: relegation.
Nottingham Forest have taken the gamble that they can beat those odds by getting rid of Sean Dyche, having already sacked Nuno Espirito Santo and Ange Postecoglou this term.
I was relegated with Watford in 2020 having had three permanent managers and one interim. It is hard to explain the carnage that so much chopping and changing causes for players.
Javi Gracia was in charge at the start of the campaign, then Quique Sanchez Flores returned to the club before he was sacked and Nigel Pearson was put in charge.
Then there was a final change as Hayden Mullins was put in interim charge for the last two games.
That sort of churn creates nothing but division within the club and especially within the squad.
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At Forest, you will have some players who, just like me at Watford, have been there for years and care deeply about the club and the staff behind the scenes and will be determined to fight for them.
Ryan Yates is in a similar position at the City Ground to what I was at Vicarage Road and will be deeply hurt by what is going on there this season.
Then there are another group of players, those who know that no matter what happens this season, they will get themselves a move away in the summer and everything will be fine.
Players in that position will look at the situation and think: “Just get me out of here! I know I’ve got offers, I’ll be all right.”
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Very quickly you can see that they go into selfish mode. They will do their job, no more than that, and then get out quickly in the summer.
Then you get a load of people in the middle that are scared and don’t know what is going to happen with themselves in the future.
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If you are doing well as a team, they look great, they are well up for it and you think: “What a player.”
But at the first sign of adversity, those who are uncertain think: “F*** it, we’re getting relegated.”
They don’t know what to do and are unrecognisable as a player. They change as quickly as a character from Space Jam.
It is not just players who panic, either. Staff at the stadium or training ground — even tea ladies in the canteen — start to worry about themselves, their jobs and their families.
When a club gets relegated and costs need to be cut, those are the people who lose their jobs, not the players.
It is very, very difficult to handle because — just as Forest are doing now — clubs often try to change too much, too soon.
It could still pay off. Forest are still above the relegation zone and, even though West Ham are picking up, others can soon drop off quickly.
Leeds are picking up some great results, with their point at Chelsea following a win over Forest, but I still worry about them and think they are the most likely to go back down to the Championship.
But even if Forest survive this incredible churn of coaches, it cannot be seen as some sort of masterstroke.
I want to know when Edu, the ‘Global Head of Football’ who joined from Arsenal, is going to face the boot. He plays a bigger part in this than some of the managers, surely?
Edu appears to have a hand in everything and was at the heart of the problems right at the start of the season which resulted in Nuno leaving just three games in.
He does not seem to have any clear philosophy on what type of manager or coach he likes — which makes you think that he doesn’t have a clue what he is doing.
The decision to get rid of Dyche, who will not be surprised by what has happened but who I feel very sorry for, smacks of an emotionally driven, panic move. These things never really work out.
There are other ways to solve short slumps in form than pressing the ‘new manager’ button again.
Edu and his staff should have looked deeper into why some players are not performing and could even have offered more of an incentive to the squad.
Given the cost of relegation, the offer of a bonus to players for winning certain games could have worked.
You would be surprised how much work already-loaded players can put in when a bit more cash is dangled.
It may seem daft, but these changes could end up costing Forest much more in the long run.
Sterling move
RAHEEM STERLING moving to Feyenoord is not something anyone would have seen coming when he left Chelsea. But it is a move that could make a lot of sense.
There are two big questions facing Sterling after his brutal time at the Blues.
Firstly, is the commitment still there? Sterling is 31 and has been playing since he was 16, having won pretty much everything you can win in the game.
Does he still want to work and fight just as much every single day having achieved that?
Moving to the Eredivisie is a sign that fire is still burning.
More importantly for him is whether or not he can fall back in love with the game.
No matter how mentally strong Sterling is, which he clearly is, football damages you a little bit when you start getting treated like an arse by clubs.
I know that from experience. This move gives Sterling the chance to go out to Feyenoord, away from the noise and interest in England, and see if he can still do it and enjoy it.
If so, he can revisit his options in the summer and see if there is a good Premier League club where he can make an impact.
He is not daft, he knows an international return is now off the cards.
But if he can fall in love with football again, there is no need for this to be the end.