Ranking of the 20 Premier League managers according to the safety of their job

Another Premier League season is fast approaching, so let's take a look at how safe in their jobs we think the 20 managers could be.

Two reasons why this is a bit trickier than it might otherwise be. Firstly, there is no Watford this year, so who will be the first jobless manager is anyone's guess. Secondly, that winter World Cup is looming on the horizon, potentially making all managers safer in the short term than they would otherwise be in a normal season. But you don't want to be the struggling manager of a struggling team in November, when owners and presidents think how neat and tidy it would be to get rid of that absolute clown (who they hired, but who always seems to get forgotten for some reason) and make someone better without it all being a rush job.

Nevertheless, these factors affect everyone more or less equally, so let's move on. We're not particularly looking to identify the winner of the Sack Race here; this is not to identify the first manager to leave, but more of a temperature check on what we estimate to be each manager's chances of at least making it to this post-World Cup recovery in Christmas. Rankings range from most perilous to safest, but you probably could have figured that out for yourself.

20. Jesse Marsch (Leeds) DANGER, DANGER! It's barely July and already you really fear for Marsch. It's probably very harsh indeed, but Leeds' survival last season by the skin of its ass never really seemed to have much to do with the lovable American (which, whether we like it or not, is another factor that counts against him in this country). He now has a lot of new players who are truly his recruits – who can absolutely cut either way depending on how things go – but who now have to start the season with a clearly weaker team than the one who was. barely avoided a fall last year. Kalvin Phillips and (in all likelihood) Raphinha are not easily replaced. A good start to the season from the editing computer is potentially helpful, but that itself can work both ways and also means a sting in the tail. Leeds face Liverpool and Spurs (who did it for Bielsa in the end) just before the November manager's sacking window (there's also a tournament or another played in that break, apparently). If Marsch even gets that far.

19. Ralph Hasenhuttl (Southampton) Arguably the manager with the least credit in the bank after that shonky end to last season in which the Saints managed to win just one of their last 12 games. It's a strange Hasenhuttl, because there are also plenty of times when Southampton look really, really good, but as a manager who has already survived not one but two 9-0 league defeats as well as at this horrible current run, he really could do with another one of those good spells pretty quickly. Southampton will face Spurs, Man United and Chelsea before the end of August. He looks in grave danger, which means they'll likely finish the first month of the season top of the table with a 100% record and a brilliant manager of the month on Ralph's desk.

18. Marco Silva (Fulham) You get as much credit for a Fulham promotion as you do for a Norwich promotion (that's to say almost none), so Silva is potentially very vulnerable to a bad start. His previous three cracks at Premier League management brought a combined total of 108 games and we wouldn't be at all surprised to see the number of games per club drop from its current surprisingly high level of 36. p>

17. Brendan Rodgers (Leicester) Improved form at the end of last season makes it a little safer than it might have been, but a Leicester reign which for a very long time looked certain to end with Rodgers moving into the world to a Big Six job or similar now seems much more likely to end with a P45 and a thanks for the memories. Of which there will be several, and not all of them, bombastic, silly press conference quotes. All in all, it feels like the manager who can least afford a slow start to the season which adds more evidence to the pile suggesting the best is already firmly in the past.

16. Bruno Lage (Wolves) Wolves are a no-nonsense club and the reaction to those early defeats at the start of Lage's first season was admirably calm, with a serene sense from both club and manager that performance exceeded results and the latter would come on time. That they dul...