5 managers who could be under pressure right now

#5 Zinedine Zidane

Real Madrid's ultra high standards mean Zinedine Zidane is already under pressure

Moving away from the Premier League for a second and taking a look at Europe’s biggest clubs, it’s clear that the manager who’s under the most strain right now is French legend Zinedine Zidane, who took the helm at Real Madrid in March after first leaving the club just under a year prior. The old adage reads “never go back”, and recently, that’s seemed to ring true for the Frenchman.

Real’s league form hasn’t been terrible by any means – they have yet to lose thus far and have won 3 of their 5 games, and this weekend saw them inflict the first defeat of the season on Sevilla, who are managed by former Real boss Julen Lopetegui. But question marks are abound over their squad, which feels a little unbalanced, and new signing Eden Hazard has yet to show the kind of form that marked him out as a world-class talent at Chelsea.

Most worrying though was their total collapse in their Champions League group stage fixture against Paris St. Germain. Everyone knows that Real’s power-brokers have practically zero tolerance for failure in Europe – even if Los Blancos are in good form in LaLiga – and a loss like that must’ve been hard to take. Real were simply whitewashed by PSG, and worse still, it was Real’s former player Angel Di Maria who orchestrated their downfall with two goals.

More results like this weekend’s against Sevilla could definitely ease the pressure on Zidane, but with Real being renowned for a lack of patience and rumours about a move for Tottenham’s boss Mauricio Pochettino already flying around, it doesn’t feel like he’s safe for now.