Gary O’Neil was pushed closer to the Wolves sack with a shambolic defeat to Everton as Craig Dawson played the part of Tim Sherwood and Tyrone Mings.
These are the players who scored an own goal in their manager’s final game before they left the job. Dawson would be the first to score two own goals before a sacking if O’Neil is finally shown the door.
Nigel Martyn (Leeds 0-4 Manchester United, September 1996)
A game perhaps better remembered for Eric Cantona missing a first-half penalty, then celebrating a relatively meaningless strike in second-half stoppage-time by standing with his arms held aloft directly in front of the home fans in his final match at Elland Road, was also Howard Wilkinson’s last in charge of Leeds.
But this was no conspiracy, just Martyn having the ball inadvertently booted at his head by Ian Harte when trying to block a Ronny Johnsen effort on the line in the second minute.
Tim Sherwood (Blackburn 0-1 Stockport, October 1996)
Much more egregious was Blackburn captain Sherwood nodding a throw-in past Tim Flowers at the front post under relatively scant pressure, then being substituted before the hour mark.
Ray Harford handed in his resignation three days after the League Cup defeat to third-tier opposition, who were donning their Romania-inspired third kits and would go as far as the semi-finals before eventually being stopped by Middlesbrough.
Des Lyttle (Liverpool 4-2 Nottingham Forest, December 1996)
In a strong season for perceived betrayals, Lyttle might have committed the biggest of the lot. Nottingham Forest had gone 15 games without a win but were hopeful when Kevin Campbell pulled one back at Anfield to make it 2-1 to Liverpool at half-time.
Forest just had to weather a strong start to the second half from the hosts but when a Jason McAteer cross looped up, Lyttle thundered a really quite strange header into the top corner on the line.
Frank Clark resigned a matter of days later, somehow refraining from calling Lyttle out personally in his statement.
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Jon Newsome (Manchester United 6-1 Sheffield Wednesday, November 1997)
There are worse ways to bury such acts of treachery. Newsome hid his in the middle of a Manchester United rout at Old Trafford, ricochets and rebounds in the area eventually culminating in the ball bouncing off him and past Kevin Pressman to bring to an end the last permanent post of David Pleat’s managerial career.
Jussi Jaaskelainen (Chelsea 2-2 Bolton, April 2007)
Only Sam Allardyce could resign from a Premier League job after holding the reigning champions to a 2-2 away draw which essentially ruled them out of the title race.
Bolton led, trailed and then equalised, the second Chelsea goal deflecting off the bar and then Jaaskelainen from a Salomon Kalou header. Quite inevitably, only Kevin Nolan ever played more games under Allardyce than the Finnish keeper, who linked up with him again for a bit at West Ham so no hard feelings.
Anton Ferdinand (QPR 1-3 Southampton, November 2012)
It was dubbed El Sackico for good reason; while Mark Hughes left QPR in the immediate aftermath, Nigel Adkins would only last another couple of months before being replaced by Mauricio Pochettino.
But this was a resounding final straw for Rangers, with Ferdinand’s late own goal the rotten cherry on an inedible cake.
Titus Bramble (Sunderland 0-1 Manchester United, March 2013)
With four own goals among his Premier League collection, a top-flight career path of Ipswich, Newcastle, Wigan and Sunderland, and an inherent ability to be Titus Bramble, perhaps it was inevitable that Titus Bramble would have at some point marked the final game of one of his managers by sticking one past his own keeper.
There was not much fault to apportion for the centre-half getting a knee on a Robin van Persie shot, even if Bramble was just randomly walking into the Dutchman’s corridor of uncertainty during the end of Martin O’Neill’s tenure.
Steve Taylor (Newcastle 1-3 Bournemouth, March 2016)
About 90 minutes before kick-off at St James’ Park, Newcastle released a statement purporting to be from the players in which recent media reports suggesting they were ‘surprised’ McClaren had not already been sacked were false, adding that the manager had their “full respect”.
Taylor getting a crucial touch on a low Josh King touch within half an hour of kick-off was thus not a great look. McClaren said that only four players – the centre-half not included – showed the requisite “character” in a crushing defeat, five days after which he was gone.
Michael Keane (Norwich 2-1 Everton, January 2022)
A really quite embarrassing defeat was fairly literally kickstarted by Keane lazily brandishing a foot at a decent Josh Sargent cross which nevertheless ought to be anticipated slightly better.
Rafael Benitez had been given That Dreaded Vote Of Confidence the previous month but this proved too shambolic a defeat to ignore.
Juraj Kucka (Watford 0-3 Norwich, January 2022)
The Canaries were then sent down the goldmine of Watford, whose brief dalliance with Claudio Ranieri culminated in a chastening defeat featuring an Emmanuel Dennis red card and Kucka shambling the ball past Daniel Bachmann from a low cross about two minutes after coming off the bench.
Chris Mepham (Liverpool 9-0 Bournemouth, August 2022)
‘Still 0-0, lads,’ Scott Parker presumably told his players at half-time after witnessing five different Liverpool players score against a beleaguered Bournemouth. Keep it tight, claw back some respect in the second half and move on.
Alternatively, send your keeper scrambling from a Trent Alexander-Arnold cross within a minute of the restart en route to one of the heaviest Premier League defeats ever. No wonder Parker basically resigned straight after.
Tyrone Mings (Fulham 3-0 Aston Villa, October 2022)
In terms of narrative, this will take some beating. Mings had been stripped of the Villa armband in the summer by Steven Gerrard, who felt that “not having the responsibility of the captaincy will allow Tyrone to focus more on his own game which can only benefit him and the team”.
Mings was then dropped for the season opener but was firmly back in the fold by the time a truly dreadful Villa visited Fulham. The defender at least waited until the 83rd minute before exacting the ultimate revenge of diverting a dangerous cross into his own net.
Gerrard described himself as a “fighter” who “will never, ever quit anything whether it’s football or in life,” then was sacked before having to endure the most awkward of bus rides home.
Jan Bednarek (Southampton 1-2 Wolves, February 2023)
Let him never be forgiven. Does he realise what he took away from us? Does he care? Does Nathan Jones still have nothing against Welsh women?
Southampton were leading with a one-man advantage after Mario Lemina was sent off for Wolves, but Bednarek summarily failing to sort out his feet led to a goal-line clearance losing the last 13 letters of the phrase. It triggered an unlikely comeback capped by Joao Gomes in the 87th minute.
Jones said the Lemina red card “was to our detriment because it made it a free hit for them and added pressure on us”.
Daniel Iversen (Crystal Palace 2-1 Leicester, April 2023)
Leicester waited bizarrely long to tell Brendan Rodgers things just weren’t working out in 2022/23. Steve Cooper wouldn’t have minded 28 games to prove himself, nor Dean Smith being appointed his replacement to make his work look even better.
The Foxes finally felt compelled to act when Roy Hodgson capped his Palace return with a win sparked by Iversen’s back foolishly nudging a stunning Eberechi Eze free-kick over the line after it clattered the crossbar, before Jean-Philippe Mateta’s stoppage-time winner.
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