Hot Seat Watch for World Football Players, Coaches After Weekend May 16-18
The end of the season in Europe's top leagues might be closing in, but that only means the pressures and criticisms become greater on players and coaches who aren't offering what is expected of them.
Our hot seat watch identifies those coming under pressure in the media, on social media from fans or merely who are underperforming and seeing results go against them, and need to finish strongly.
Trophies, new contracts and more come under scrutiny in this week's selection of players and coaches.
Carlo Ancelotti
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Carlo Ancelotti won the Champions League last season, reached the semi-finals this year again and will finish as runner-up in La Liga—but such is life at Real Madrid that he might be out of a job anyway.
The failure to overcome Juventus over two legs and Barcelona's inevitable sealing of the domestic league title has seemingly provoked the ire of Florentino Perez, who Guillem Balague of Sky Sports says has approached Jose Mourinho and up to four other coaches already to take over from Ancelotti.
Mourinho is reported to have turned down the chance, but even so it appears a lack of silverware could cost Ancelotti his job.
Iker Casillas...and Keylor Navas
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On the touchline isn't the only place where Real Madrid could see changes.
Another dismal overall season for Iker Casillas means his place as No. 1 goalkeeper continues to come under scrutiny. He didn't play the must-win game at Espanyol over the weekend after another poor display against Juventus, with Keylor Navas instead coming in for just his sixth league appearance of the season.
Navas didn't fare much better, making an awful error to allow Espanyol their goal, and with David de Gea linked with a move to the Bernabeu it could see both keepers moved on in summer.
Pep Guardiola
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Sticking with the Spanish theme for now, Bayern Munich's head coach Pep Guardiola is under plenty of watchful eyes too after his side have imploded at the back end of the season.
A weekend loss to Freiburg, 2-1, was Bayern's fifth defeat in their last six games, which has left them out of the German Cup and the Champions League at the semi-final stage. The Bundesliga was already won so it's not damaging that they have since lost three games there, but it hardly strengthens Guardiola's own claims to stay in the role either.
Bayern expect the league, but want European success too to prove their pedigree—and it hasn't happened again for Pep.
Raheem Sterling
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If your Twitter timeline has any Liverpool supporters on it, chances are it has been filled with angry, annoyed or vitriolic comments over the past 24 hours after it emerged via Ben Smith of BBC Sport that the wide forward intends to ask to leave the club.
Sterling's form has dropped considerably over the past few weeks as the Reds failed to make the top four of the Premier League or the FA Cup final and he was widely reported to have turned down a £100,000-per-week new contract earlier in the year.
Whether the Reds end up selling him or not is still debatable, with two years left on his contract.
Pippo Inzaghi
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AC Milan have made Real Madrid's "bad" year look positively memorable, as the seven-times European Cup winners languish in the bottom half of Serie A.
A 3-2 loss to Sassuolo had a touch of deja-vu about it as Domenico Berardi hit a hat-trick to leave Milan in 11th, losing more games than they have won in the league this season.
Pippo Inzaghi's first season in charge has been one nightmare result after another, performances aren't impressive and the number of hugely average players in the squad remains a big concern ahead of another summer of rebuilding.
Ron Vlaar
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Over in England, Aston Villa and Arsenal are gearing up for the FA Cup final at the end of May, but after a strong run of form Villa suffered a 6-1 thrashing at the weekend against Southampton.
Centre-backs Jores Okore and Ron Vlaar were particularly poor in the match, but Dutch veteran Vlaar was the worse of the two and has been far from his usually domineering performances of late in general. With Nathan Baker fit again, he will be sweating on a place in the starting lineup for the final unless things pick up.
From being a wanted man last year to being out of contract this summer, there's no guarantee the big clubs will still come calling for Vlaar on recent evidence.
David Moyes
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Back to Spain and La Liga, things have gone pretty poorly for Real Sociedad manager David Moyes overall. Of course there are mitigating circumstances—language, an under-performing team and coming in midway through the season being just three of them—but La Real's form is woeful.
A 3-0 loss at home to relegation-troubled Granada at the weekend makes it just one win in nine now for Moyes and co., with La Real now unable to finish any higher than 12th this season.
They've also failed to beat three of the four struggling teams down at the bottom in the past six weeks.
Cesc Fabregas/Mike Jones
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We finish up with Cesc Fabregas, red-carded on Monday night for kicking the ball at Chris Brunt's head...or with referee Mike Jones, who sent Cesc off for inadvertently kicking the ball at Brunt's head, depending on your point of view.
Clearly, with a big group of players huddled around the referee, Cesc was always likely to hit someone as he clipped the ball in toward the group from 20 yards away, but a headshot to the player standing right in front of the referee...is his aim that good on purpose?!
No doubt Alex Ferguson would have commented that Cesc could have killed Brunt, and was right to be shown the red.
