Next Portsmouth Manager Odds: Featuring Leam Richardson, Liam Manning, Darrell Clarke and Chris Wilder

The EFL’s 2023 hiatus on sacking managers lasted all of 48 hours after Portsmouth cut ties with their head coach Danny Cowley and his assistant/brother Nicky on Monday night.

TheSackRace looks at who Pompey could appoint next…

Portsmouth’s decision came 24 hours after a 3-1 defeat at home to Charlton on New Year’s Day, which extended Pompey’s League One winless streak to nine matches dating back to October, dropping the club from 5th to 12th in the table.

Now nine points adrift of the play-offs, Portsmouth will hope that a new manager can galvanize the squad and fire them back up into the top-6.

"The search for a new coaching team will commence immediately", the club said in a statement.

So, who will be chosen to spearhead the side?

We’ve taken a closer look at the early contenders for the job in the next Portsmouth manager odds…

As is often the case when a new manager market opens up, there’s little to separate the early contenders for the vacancy.

At the time of writing, it’s Leam Richardson who is the slight favourite in the betting with BetVictor.

Richardson elevated Wigan out of League One last season, complete with the title in his hands. However, the club showed their ruthless side a few months into the current campaign when they sacked the 42-year-old just after he signed a new long-term contract. 

A pretty harsh decision at the time, it now looks even worse given that Wigan are rock-bottom of the Championship and so far winless under his replacement Kolo Toure.

Richardson, who remains available for hire, has ties to Portsmouth where he worked as an assistant to Paul Cook between 2015 and 2017. The duo propelled Pompey into League One in their second season, only to leave for Wigan a few weeks later.

Next in the running you’ll find another unemployed manager in Liam Manning, whose odds have been cut from 12/1 to 5/2 with BetVictor.

Manning came agonisingly close to steering MK Dons to automatic promotion to the Championship in his first season, only to finish 3rd on the final day, then miss out in the play-offs.

The 37-year-old’s reputation soared and he was subsequently linked with a number of EFL clubs during the summer, but stayed at MK Dons.

However, the club picked up just 15 points from their opening 20 matches this term - they did lose a number of key players - a return which left them 23rd and cost Manning his job in December.

Richardson and Manning are pursued in the betting by former Pompey youth coach Darrell Clarke (8/1) who has Port Vale above Portsmouth and knocking on the League One play-off door following their promotion last season.

The experienced five-time promotion winner Chris Wilder (10/1) has not managed in League One since he propelled Sheffield United to the title in 2016/17. Fast-forward to the here-and-now and could the former Middlesbrough now be lured back down to the third-tier? It would be a big statement of intent from Portsmouth if they could pull it off.

Former Charlton and Birmingham boss Lee Bowyer can also be backed at 10/1, Walsall manager Michael Flynn and the out-of-work Darren Ferguson are both 16/1 - the latter has three League One promotions on his CV - followed by a whole host of managers at 25/1, including Duncan Ferguson, Gareth Ainsworth, Steve Bruce, and Dean Smith.