Best for Poyet’s job security to lose Capital One Cup final

Given how upset Arsenal fans in general, and especially Piers Morgan, are on the length of the club’s wait to lift some silverware, you would think that those managers that do guide their teams to a trophy would be a bit keener to retain these bosses for the longer term.

However, Michael Laudrup’s departure from Swansea continues a remarkable statistic relating to managers to have won the League Cup in recent years.

Looking back at the last seven League Cup finals, Sir Alex Ferguson is the only winning manager to still be in the same job on the day the final was played in the following year.

Jose Mourinho (2007), Juande Ramos (2008), Alex McLeish (2011), Kenny Dalglish (2012) and now Laudrup have all failed to see out the next 12 months after a League Cup victory.

Although not impacting the futures of all of the above managers, many of the winning clubs have often embarked on somewhat of a honeymoon period between winning the competition and the remainder of the Premier League season.

Birmingham only took eight points from their final 12 games and were relegated, Liverpool were dreadful in the second half of the 2012 season and ended up finishing eighth, which was their lowest league position since 1994 and Swansea only won two of their final 11 games last season.

What this does suggest is that Gus Poyet may actually be better losing the Capital One Cup final, even though Sunderland supporters have been waiting over 40 years to win a meaningful trophy, after their 1973 FA Cup triumph.

Sunderland are the big underdogs in the Capital One Cup odds at 4/1 to lift the trophy, with Man City the major favourites at 1/6.

The Black Cats also can’t afford a similar nosedive after the cup final to those experienced by Birmingham, Liverpool or Swansea, as one would almost certainly see them relegated. It is 3/1 in the Premier League betting that Sunderland are relegated this season.

What a League Cup victory would also bring is a Europa League campaign next season and all three English teams in this season’s competition have changed managers, with Tottenham and Wigan parting company with Andre Villas-Boas and Owen Coyle respectively.