Goodbye, Billy Davies

As I predicted back on November 5th after Chris Hutchings was sacked by Wigan ("Billy Davies Next to Go?"), Derby County has ended Davies' tenure at the East Midlands club by "mutual consent", aka "take this buyout gratefully and we won't say we fired you."

Derby have just one win in the Premiership this season and have been held scoreless in six consecutive matches and seven out of their last eight. Their problem, as one pundit on FSC put it the other day, is that they're playing the same style of soccer as they played in the Championship, and that simply doesn't work. It's one thing to play the likes of Barnsley and Burnley and Stoke City (no disrespect to those clubs) and it's another to play Chelsea and Manchester United and Liverpool; any Premier League team for that matter. Derby's defense has been atrocious and they currently have a -28 goal differential. Most importantly for a team that was basically condemned back to the Championship before this season even started, they weren't showing any progress under Billy Davies and the change needed to be made.

This now makes five managers who started the year with a club to have left by "mutual consent" or been sacked (Chris Hutchings, Jose Mourinho, Sammy Lee, and Martin Jol), not counting Steve Bruce, who left Birmingham for Wigan. You would have to say that Gareth Southgate at Middlesbrough and Sam Allardyce at Newcastle are now the odds-on leaders in the sack race.

Billy Davies Next to Go?

Let's face it, the Premiership is a business. In a business, it's expected of those in charge to produce results and if they don't, something has to be done about it.

Pundits across the world gave Derby County almost no chance to stay up this season; some went as far as to predict that the Rams would set a record for the fewest points ever in a Premiership season (Sunderland-15; two years ago). At this point in time the former certainly appears it will be true, and though at their current pace Derby will end up somewhere in the neighborhood of 18-20 points, that's just not good enough.

At some point in time, those in charge have to be held accountable and manager Billy Davies really isn't getting it done with Derby. His team has a goal differential of -21 after 12 games and have yet to score a goal on the road. Their only victory of the year came against perennial underachiever Newcastle and in all honesty, the Magpies were unlucky not to come out of that game with a point. They were knocked out of the Carling Cup in the second round at home against Championship newcomers Blackpool.

Even if ownership is resolved to the fact that they will be going down, it's important to not show this to the players and to make every effort to try and turn things around. Changing managers could inspire the team enough to snatch a few points in the run of upcoming games and in the long run, a point here, a point there may be the difference between the Premiership and Championship. Billy Davies simply isn't getting his message across to his players and when you look at the roster, they're a better team than they've showed thus far. You have to bring in a fresh face to get the most out of the players.

Billy Davies appears to be the odds-on favorite in the "sack race", though certainly you could make a case for Gareth Southgate as well. If you're going to change the manager at all, you have to do it before the situation gets completely out of hand and all hope is lost. If you're a Derby fan, you have to get this poor run of form nipped in the bud before you're condemned to life in the second tier of English soccer.