This thread is inspired by this article: http://www.football365.com/john-nich...John-Nicholson and Why England lose/Soccernomics. Both suggest that a football manager is merely a motivator and a figurehead and that there is no evidence that keeping the same manager for a protracted period of time is any more likely to bring success than chopping and changing bosses regularly. Soccernomics goes further and says that regularly changing managers is a good thing to keep the team on its toes and to exploit the 'honeymoon period'.

Obviously for the lower leagues the manager is important as the club are unlikely to have a director of football and top class coaches and scouts.

However, for a top club with a mature scouting network and a director of football, how important is the manager?