Andy Gray takes a look at how the Premier League's newest managers might get on this season...
Expectation and results ensure management is still a volatile business
Ron Atkinson once told me that the only guarantee a football manager has is that he will be sacked.
As we embark on another Premier League season, it's certain that we will lose some more managers along the way over the next nine months. The question is 'how many?'
On the whole there wasn't too much movement in the Premier League last season - certainly in comparison to the Championship and Leagues One and Two.
Of the 36 dismissals across the four leagues only five came in the top-flight, while the average tenure of a Premier League manager is 3.46 years, well above the overall average of two even allowing for Sir Alex Ferguson's longevity.
Those figures, provided by the League Managers Association, back up my suspicion that lower league chairmen are quicker to pull the trigger than their Premier League counterparts who are more prepared to let their managers manage.
Nevertheless, the three managers new to the Premier League this season - Chris Hughton, Ian Holloway and Roberto di Matteo - plus those who have joined new clubs, namely Mark Hughes, Avram Grant and Roy Hodgson, will still feel a huge weight of expectation. I wish them all good luck for the season ahead. Some will need it more than others.
Communicating
I've no doubt that Liverpool will improve significantly on last season's seventh-placed finish and push hard for a top-four spot under Hodgson. They don't have much ground to make up.
The players will respond to Hodgson's British style of management; he's very good at communicating with his players and sorting out their problems and I think they'll find him far more amiable than Rafa Benitez ever was.
At times Benitez was almost detached from his players and appeared to manage by numbers whereas Roy has the air of an old-fashioned-style boss, who manages by touch and feel.
Some fans have told me they're worried by the size of Liverpool's squad but I think it's big enough - providing he doesn't get a mass of injuries.
It goes without saying that every manager would like a few million more to spend on players but it doesn't look as if the owners are going to oblige so he'll just have to make do with what he's got. He's just the man to do a spot of housekeeping for a few months and then reassess how things are going.
Bringing Joe Cole to Anfield was a great coup for Roy because it proved early on that he can attract big names to the club - something that would have otherwise worried him. With Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres staying put he has every chance of working his magic again.
Work
Mark Hughes is another man with experience of managing in the Premier League who is getting used to pastures new, this time at Fulham, but it will be no easy task following Roy.
Since being sacked by Manchester City Sparky has bided his time and waited for the right job to come up and reckons this is the one for him.
It's not an easy challenge that faces him but in Mohammad Al Fayed he does have a chairman that I think backs his managers when he's able to. Sparky will enjoy that type of support.
Mark would love to take the club on from what they achieved last season but he's right to try and keep fans' expectations in check because the European run the Cottagers enjoyed was sensational.
You'd have to think, though, that the success came at a cost as far as their league form was concerned so I can see them improving on last season's 12th-placed finish.
Sparky has got a decent side there that will work very hard for him; he and assistant Mark Bowen will now want to do it their way and get one or two of their own in, though.
Moussa Dembele and Craig Bellamy are two of the names currently in the frame and it wouldn't surprise me to see the former on board very soon.
Understated
I know some are tipping West Ham to struggle this season but I'm going the other way - I can see Avram Grant bringing about a big upturn in the club's fortunes.
For me he's one of the league's unsung managers.
People seem to forget how close he was to winning a sensational double with Chelsea in 2008. He was one penalty away from managing a Champions League-winning team in a year when his team also finished second in the league. That's as close as you can get.
He remains a low-key, understated manager, who doesn't get too excited or let anything bother him too much and that's exactly what the Hammers need after all the upheaval of recent seasons.
He has a good footballing brain and has brought a couple of very good players into the club in the run up to the season.
The most important thing for him, though, was not to lose too many and he's succeeded in that as much as Robert Green, Matthew Upson, Scott Parker and Carlton Cole are still at the club. If the same is true come the end of August, last season's 17th-placed finish should be but a distant memory.
Volatile
If the bookies are right, then 17th will seem like the promised land for the Premier League's newest managers.
Chris Hughton has experienced life in the top-flight before as an assistant coach but now we'll find out if he has what it takes to deal with the scrutiny and expectation that comes with managing a massive club at the highest level.
It worries me that he has come up from the Championship with pretty much the same Newcastle team that got relegated from the Premier League.
Likewise, it will be a big ask for Roberto Di Matteo to keep West Brom up. Of the three promoted teams I think they might be the ones to survive to see another season.
The former Chelsea player is sensible and clever enough to realise his side won't be able to play in the same way as they did in the Championship - if they do, they will get opened up and beaten time and again. That's what happened under Tony Mowbray.
But if they can tighten up and sneak the odd goal they may well win enough games to stay afloat.
I can't say the same of Blackpool. It seems incredibly harsh and ridiculous to sit here before the season has even started to say Ian Holloway's side will go straight back down, particularly as its so refreshing to see a new face at the top table.
But that's the nature of the beast we are dealing with. The Premier League is volatile, unforgiving and tough and if you are not good enough you will get found out.
Just ask those managers who bear the scars.
