EACH YEAR, the slaughter begins a little earlier. The kangaroo courts are convened in pubs and offices (not to mention newspaper columns). With the season barely begun, managers are already in the firing line, like a row of tin ducks at the fair.

They call it the burden of expectations. Once fans expected only that coach and players would do their level best. Today, the demand amounts to a kind of refined cruelty: no-one is allowed to lose, everyone must win, instantly.

The new orthodoxy in both premier leagues is that a shaky start to the season can ruin your entire year. It can deny you precious European money. In England, if the notorious "slide" is not arrested, you could end up saying goodbye (according to Sheffield United's complaint against West Ham) to £50 million. And the fans will spit on your very name.

The intensity of such pressure, on the basis of just a couple of games, comes in various forms, but each encompasses lunacy. Young coaches can have their careers destroyed almost before they have begun. Older, wiser, experienced men can be forced out of the sport entirely. And several, say a Paul Jewell for example, can be heard pleading for respite.

An obvious question: is the football thereby improved? Does the rush to snap judgments, to inquisition and execution, help to improve the spectacle? Coaches existing in a constant state of fear and alarm do not, I think, give of their best. Players who never know where their next boss is coming from lose concentration. But still the circus rolls on.

Managers can't win - unless, of course, their teams do nothing but win. Two examples. At Hibs, John Collins has just had the guts utterly ripped out of his side while being given to understand that he will not see a bean from the considerable proceeds.

This is an Easter Road rite of passage. What's new is the claim that a young, first-time manager will be judged this season on his ability to provide a winning team amid the transfer carnage. That's his task, clearly, but is the demand reasonable?

Contrast and compare. At Spurs, Martin Jol was allowed to spend sums of which Collins can only dream during the close season. Most of the signings were admired as astute and imaginative. But Tottenham, afflicted by injuries, have had a lousy start. Losing by three goals to one at home against Everton last week was not part of the plan.

So Jol is put to the question. Does he still enjoy the confidence of Daniel Levy, his chairman, while Spurs are, as I write, "propping up the table"? Or has Levy already begun to make some tentative inquiries in the fair city of Seville?

Jol, old warhorse, brushes all this aside. He has no other choice. He has to insist that, when all are fit - is it just me, or are the injury lists longer than ever this August? - his rebuilt Spurs will come good. Yet already Jol is held to be in trouble. This was the year in which his squad were supposed to challenge England's top four. Instead, all attention rests on the manager's career prospects.

Fans are hard to please. Some are, in fact, impossible to satisfy when they are offered anything less than perfection.

The far-flung tribes of Manchester United owe most of their happy memories to Alex Ferguson. Last season, the old man re-established his pre-eminence in the English game. Since then he has improved his squad with astute signings and, admittedly, large amounts of Glazer money.

But what's this? United have made an inauspicious start. That Rooney-Tevez pairing will have to wait. Cristiano Ronaldo has returned, however briefly, to the dark side. Guess what happens next, if Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool fail to stumble, and if United fail to get a grip on their form?

The muttering will resume. The ever-wise will tell themselves that one postponed retirement was disruptive enough, but now it is time for the old chap to call it a day. Even Alex Ferguson, of all people, is not immune.

If anyone has demonstrated the virtues of continuity, of sticking with your man through good times and bad, it is he. But I make a bet: one more poor result will ensure an outbreak of "speculation".

Past success is no insurance policy. Given the stakes, that is perhaps inevitable. It is not for me to say why Celtic fans seem reluctant to judge Gordon Strachan on his record, not least after that very satisfying (and surprising) draw in Moscow. But the Parkhead coach, for one, has given us an interesting response to coaching, unending pressure, and the people applying the pressure.

As the world now knows, he does not respect too many of them. If they happen to include blokes in shell suits "sipping lager, who couldn't run to catch a bus" but who can, and do, call radio phone-ins to grumble inanely, Strachan doesn't bother to hide his contempt.

It is a fair point, badly made. No-one cares to have their ear bent on the subject of expertise by an ignoramus. Then again, managers could follow one piece of simple advice: when you turn on the radio, stick to Classical FM. The dolt lobby will add nothing to your quality of life.

Strachan's outburst is an illustration, nevertheless, of the mad world managers must occupy. Has Jimmy Calderwood committed some crime against humanity at Pittodrie? Not so far as we know. Has he produced a tough, competitive squad that, arguably, looks likely to improve? I would say so. Yet Calderwood gets booed, his loyalties questioned, for the sin of allowing a draw with Hearts, Aberdeen's nearest obvious rivals. Calderwood offers the measured (OK, not so measured) response that he agrees with Strachan. I'll bet.

Fans pay a lot of hard-earned money, it's true, but it might be nice if sometimes they decided to help a coach rather than hinder. Fat chance.