When your team is losing, when bad form continues for a long time, when players look like they can no longer kick a football, there is only one thing you hope the board will do – sack the manager and bring in a new one who will give the team energy, inject hope in fans’ minds, put the club back on winning ways. This is a worldwide known move, tested by thousands and a living legend – the New Manager Effect.

As with every legend, there is a certain problem – not everything is true. This season, the Polish Ekstraklasa is the best example of chairmen constantly looking for the simplest way to solve the problem – sack the manager and hope for a new start. Since the ball was kicked for the first time three months ago nine changes have been made and, as you will see, there is nothing effective about the New Manager Effect.

Indeed, it’s a very popular move these days in Poland. This country and football culture is not especially known for sticking with one managerial name for too long – currently, the longest serving manager in Polish Ekstraklasa is Waldemar Fornalik, who has been at Ruch Chorzów since April 2009. You can’t really compare him with sir Alex Ferguson, can you? The average stay is no longer than nine months, which means that short-term coaching is the main ability Polish football clubs look for in a candidate’s CV.

This weekend saw three new managers on the touchline and none of them even got a point. Lechia’s Rafał Ulatowski went with his team to Warsaw and lost 3-0 to Legia, while Ryszard Tarasiewicz took his ŁKS side to Bełchatów and got hammered by GKS, 3-0 as well. Arguably, the easiest challenge was waiting for Kazimierz Moskal and Wisła Krakow, as the Polish champions hosted Górnik Zabrze – yet even they lost the game 1-0. None of the managers’ new sides managed even a goal yet it’s clear that the trio cannot be at fault for these results, especially this season.

Unsurprisingly, the current bottom five clubs have changed their managers, as did sixth placed Wisła when the results became too bad to stick with Robert Maaskant. ŁKS was the one that made the change first, after only their first game of the season, just after Lech put five goals past them. Only four games later and with still only one point to their name, they made another managerial change. This time it really made sense but Michał Probierz, despite winning thirteen points in seven games, decided to continue his coaching career at Greek side Aris, leaving ŁKS with a huge headache. In the last two games, ŁKS, managed by two different managers, lost twice, scored none and conceded seven.

The second to get the sack was Paweł Janas from GKS Belchatow. He was replaced by young Kamil Kiereś but his start wasn’t a good one either. A debut point in their home game against Widzew was all his team managed in his first three matches. Ten points in his nine games so far are hardly a record he should be proud of either. And then there was Cracovia, where Jurij Szatałow performed miracles last season when they somehow managed to stay up. Sadly, his start to this season was as woeful as a year ago where two points in seven opening games were enough to give a chance to Dariusz Pasieka. He won his first game at Górnik Zabrze but has so far managed only seven points in seven games – although the derby win against Wisła was a particular highlight.

The last example is probably the most spectacular as well – Pavel Hapal, who once managed Slovakian champions MSK Zilina in the Champions League, came to Zagłębie Lubin just before the local derby with Śląsk Wroclaw. His debut ended in a spectacular 5-1 home defeat. To sum up, nine managers were already given their chance at six different clubs - Bratkowski, Probierz, Wieszczycki and Tarasiewicz at ŁKS, Hapal at Zagłębie, Ulatowski at Lechia, Pasieka at Cracovia, Moskal at Wisła, and Kiereś at GKS. All they managed in their first games in charge, were seven points out of a possible twenty-seven, with the goal ratio standing currently at 3-20.

This should give some food for thought to those that will want to sack anybody sooner or later in the Polish Ekstraklasa. Is it possible though that the New Manager Effect was used so frequently in recent seasons that it’s lost its meaning? The players are not feeling it anymore? Are not reacting positively to the change? Or maybe it is the managers’ fault, those that are still in the circle, and they have simply run out of ideas of how to make their work meaningful from day one?

This is a case for a whole different study, though an interesting one. Unfortunately, the chance that anything will change and chairmen will opt for punishing players instead of managers is highly unlikely. In a league that lacks quality as much as the Ekstraklasa does there is a constant pressure to deliver, no matter how long have you been in the job. They are no wizards though, even if they have to perform magic with poor squads and generally cope with low standards, just to keep their jobs. The carousel will just keep on spinning.