January is when decisions are made to change how things feel. Not always how they work, but how they feel. The fixtures tighten, the table sharpens, and patience becomes expensive. Clubs tell themselves they are acting early, acting decisively, acting before it is too late. Often what they are really doing is buying air.

At Old Trafford, the phones start buzzing before full time. A flat draw drains the place of belief and the crowd senses what the result confirms rather than causes. This is not a team about to turn a corner. It is a team circling the same problems again. In the directors’ box, there is no panic, only acceptance.

Within hours, Manchester United confirm that Ruben Amorim is gone.

The numbers alone do not demand it. United are not in free fall. But tension has been building for weeks. Amorim’s insistence on control, over training, recruitment, even language, has begun to feel like friction rather than authority. Performances are rigid. Adjustments come late. The sense grows that something has to give.

Five days earlier, the same feeling settles over Stamford Bridge. Chelsea start the year by dismissing Enzo Maresca. This is not framed as failure. Chelsea point to European success and thank him politely. But one league win in seven has turned every match into an argument. The football looks cautious. The crowd restless. Internally, patience thins.

North of the border, patience barely exists. Celtic end Wilfried Nancy’s reign after eight matches and six defeats, the breaking point a home loss to Rangers that pushes anger beyond the stands and into the streets. Later in the month, Leicester City follow suit, dismissing Martí Cifuentes after a flat home defeat to Oxford leaves them drifting mid-table. In both cases, the football matters less than the sense that waiting longer would allow the story to set.

All of it happens early. The first week of January. The kind of timing that leaves room for renewal. New faces arrive quickly and results follow. United tighten up. Chelsea pick up points. Celtic steady. Leicester find energy. Training sharpens. Selection simplifies. The mood lifts.

None of this contradicts what came before. It simply changes the weather.

January compresses time. Matches come quickly. The table sharpens. Windows open and close. Under that pressure, clubs stop asking whether change will help and start asking whether staying still is worse. Once that question is asked, momentum often follows. Whether it lasts is another matter.

Decades of research on managerial sackings suggest that most of the improvement credited to a new manager reflects regression to the mean rather than genuine change. The bounce feels decisive. The destination rarely moves much.

In other words: The league table moves, the trajectory doesn’t.

The manager change didn’t alter fate, it changed the story told about it.

This pattern is not confined to football. It appears wherever performance is public and patience is costly.

Boards replace chief executives after flat quarters, not because strategy has failed but because belief has. Product teams rush redesigns after backlash, changing what users can see before fixing what they feel. Organisations reshuffle reporting lines to show movement while postponing diagnosis. Action fixes the story before it fixes the problem.

The short-term lift is real. Morale improves. Decisions speed up. Noise drops. Like a new manager bounce, the system briefly breathes easier. The danger comes when that emotional reset is mistaken for progress.

Football exposes this clearly because feedback is fast. Results arrive quickly and regression is unforgiving. Elsewhere, the gap between cause and effect is wider, which makes the illusion easier to sustain.

The lesson is not that action is wrong. Under pressure, visible action can be sensible. It can buy space. It can steady nerves. The mistake is not naming its purpose.

Is the decision meant to fix the system, or to stabilise belief while harder work begins?

January decisions feel decisive because they change the temperature, not the terrain. Momentum buys time. It does not buy answers. Confuse relief with progress and the weather becomes the plan. In football, that costs a season. Elsewhere, it can cost much more.

📚 “Thinking in Bets” by Annie Duke
Separate decision quality from outcome quality, especially when short-term results are noisy.

🗣️ “The Knowledge Project” Episode with Ed Catmull
Visible change can reset belief, but only system fixes make improvement last.

🧑‍💻 “The Perils of Bad Strategy” by McKinsey
This article breaks down how companies use reframing in design thinking to generate more creative solutions.

Until next time

Business lessons from the world of sport