Rene Meulensteen has become the latest victim in a worrying culture within football to sack a manager once the pressure is on. Meulensteen was only in charge at Fulham for two and a half months but he has been sacked with ex-Bayern Munich boss, Felix Magath coming in as his replacement.

English football has been blighted in recent years with a culture of sacking managers when times get tough and it is hurting clubs and the national side. No manager is ever more than half a dozen bad results away from his P45 and it leads to major problems throughout the game.

There was a time when a manager could come into a new job with a vision of the club in the future. He could put things in place and reap the rewards in the future. However, those days are long gone and even clubs within the lower tiers of English football are operating on a win now or you're out basis.

Throughout English football managers are changing all the time. A look at the list of the managers of England's ninety-two league clubs shows that fifty are still in the first year of their current job. That is 54% of the managers in the football league. A look further down the list shows a further twenty-four under two years, nine under three years and six under four years. That leaves just three managers in the English leagues who were in their current job four years ago. Those numbers are staggering.

With such a ridiculous turnover a difficult job becomes impossible. Managers become reluctant to take risks and this means they are less likely to give young players a chance. This hurts their development and as a consequence the player, the club and the national team will suffer in the long run but a manager cannot be blamed for that as he has a more experienced player he can rely on right now to keep him in a job.  It is an extremely short sighted approach.

In reality there isn't a lot that can be done. The manager is second in command at a football club behind a chairman, a CEO or an owner. When things go wrong it is easy to sack the manager but perhaps the authorities could put something in place to protect managers.

I recently heard a discussion on the radio that brought up the possibility of a points deduction for clubs that sack their managers in the middle of the season. At the time I dismissed it as a ridiculous idea but on reflection it's not as crazy as it seems.  

It's highly unlikely it will ever happen as it would require approval from the owners but there has to be a point when owners look at themselves.  Some clubs have ridiculous turnovers of managers. Clubs that have five managers in five years must start to look a little harder at the situation. Is the problem the five managers you have sacked or is the problem the guy who appointed five managers who "weren't good enough".  

If consequences were brought in that punished clubs who change their manager all the time then perhaps more care might be taken when making an appointment and more managers would get the opportunity to build something.  

Too many owners are looking for instant rewards but all the great clubs were built with the bigger picture in mind. It took Sir Alex Ferguson and Bill Shankly time to build the dynasties they created at their respective clubs.  In today's game those two would have been sacked long before the success arrived and football could look extremely different.

Some will say that the game has changed and of that there is no doubt but in this particular instance it is most definitely not for the better.