The 10 Worst Football managers

rosboy

From The Guardian newspaper:

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/05/04/the_10_worst_football_managers.html

1 Graeme Souness
As a player, his name struck fear into opponents. As a manager, he has been more terrifying for his own clubs. Nearly two decades of sackings and disappointment after his success at Rangers, Souness, remarkably, still rates himself as one of the big guns. He spent nearly £50m on a relegation battle at Newcastle, and told Deco he wasn't going to cut it at Benfica - replacing him with Sheffield Wednesday's Mark Pembridge - but it's at Liverpool where the wrecking ball did most damage. Britain's most successful club are still recovering today. Souness doesn't so much lose the dressing room as rarely find it to start with.


2 Egil Olsen
Few managers can boast that they helped wipe a club off the footballing map. After 13 years in the top flight, Wimbledon were starting to hone their direct tactics into a more patient style when this long-ball obsessive and committed Marxist (nickname 'Drillo') arrived in the summer of 1999, having taken Norway to two World Cups. Strangely, his wellies, beaded glasses and zonal-marking tactic didn't win over the Crazy Gang and he was fired with relegation looming the next May, blaming the players for not embracing his system. Recently sacked as manager of Iraq.


3 Hristo Stoichkov
'I don't believe in tactics,' Stoichkov announced on taking over at Celta Vigo last summer. He wasn't lying, having started one World Cup qualifier with a 2-4-4 formation that left Bulgaria trailing Malta for half an hour. But it was in man-management that the hot-headed Stoichkov's deficiencies were most apparent. He forced three players (two of them captains) into premature retirement and, running out of people to argue with, went for an entire country - accusing Romania of fixing a qualifier. Hugely unpopular at Celta, he was sacked six weeks into this season.


4 Ossie Ardiles
Christian Gross was perhaps the most comical Tottenham manager (brandishing a Tube ticket at his first press conference), but statistically Alan Sugar's appointment of the Argentine club legend (Gross averaged 1.31 points per game, Ardiles 1.15) was worse. In 1994, his second season, Ardiles revealed his masterstroke - the one-man midfield and five-man front-line - and blindly stuck to his plan despite shipping 33 goals in 15 games. Tottenham have since become known for having decent players who never achieve anything. Thank Ossie.


5 David Platt
Well connected and with a player's worldly knowledge of the game (well, he'd been abroad), Platty seemed destined for management. His mate Luca Vialli even heralded him as the future of coaching. Sadly his actual destiny was to share studio space with Richard Keys. His short stint at Sampdoria in 1998-99 led to their relegation after 17 years in Serie A, while in a disastrous spell at Nottingham Forest he blew £12m on players such as Gianluca Petrachi and Salvatore Matrecano from Perugia, making him the most unpopular man in the city since Sir Guy of Gisbourne.


6 Glenn Roeder
The League is littered with regretful chairmen who decided to put the assistant in charge. Steve Wigley at Southampton and Les Reed at Charlton take some beating in an overcrowded field, but it requires extra-special skill to take down a squad containing David James, Joe Cole, Fredi Kanouté, Paolo Di Canio and Jermain Defoe, as Roeder did at West Ham in 2003. Then again, when you consider his 'train guard announcing planned engineering works' impression at post-match interviews, it's not so surprising that West Ham didn't win a home league game for five months.


7 Alan Ball
Lovely man, lousy manager. In fact, Ball was less a manager than a ruthlessly efficient relegation machine: five times his teams went down, even if he was only twice employed long enough to go down with the ship. Out of the six clubs he managed, only Southampton avoided the drop. His biggest blunder came on the last day of the 1995-96 season, when he told his Man City players a draw was enough for survival - they were playing keep-ball, when the substituted Niall Quinn rushed back to pitchside to inform everyone that City needed a winner. Too late.


8 The England 1986 World Cup Squad
It's as if a curse was placed on the 22 players Bobby Robson took to Mexico 86 - they could fill a book on the most dreadful management records of modern times. From Peters Shilton and Reid through Terry Fenwick to Alvin Martin and John Barnes, there are enough failed bosses to field an XI and three subs. Captain, of course, would be Marvel himself, Bryan Robson. Surely the only manager to be effectively sacked (when Terry Venables came to Middlesbrough mid-season) but still turn up for work. The phrase 'left by mutual consent' could be written on his gravestone.


9 Claude Anelka
In 2004, tired of engineering transfers for his restless brother Nicolas and fed up with 'the crazy things' he saw managers do, agent and DJ Claude Anelka decided he wanted to be a boss himself. With a 'mystery' backer, he offered £300,000 to any lower-league club who would let him be manager, and got a bite at Raith Rovers, in Scottish Division One. Citing Cruyff, Wenger and the boss of Chinawhite nightclub as influences, his philosophy and signings - some from the Paris seven-a-side leagues - brought Rovers just one point from 24 before he stepped aside.


10 Jim Fallon
Statistics are not the only way to judge a manager, but if they were, Dumbarton's Jim Fallon would have an unmovable grip on the worst manager crown. The club's 1995-96 record makes horrific reading: played 36, won three, drawn two, lost 31. Then consider that two of the wins came in the opening two games, before they appointed Fallon. A record of 0.147 points per match convinced the board he deserved another crack the following season. He's now a physio.

Tusky

Thats why I find it so hard to listen to Souness when hes talking about what should and shouldn't be done. He tried and failed. Surely he shouldnt be a pundit,

Pepe LeFrits

There's more to being a manager than that.

Xavi6

Thank God Alan Ball made the list.

kaisersose77

Bryan Robson should be on that list

I like Souness as a pundit, he's not the only failed manager who is one. Sure they wouldnt be pundits if they were being offered good jobs managing. Liam Brady is one example.


edit: just noticed Robson is mentioned!

Charlie

As a Newcastle fan, I would wholeheartedly agree with Souness, the man is a dressing room disaster, and in any interview I have heard him on, always seems places the blame on someone else. I listened to him on Dunphy's Saturday radio show, and he tried blaming Daglish for what subsequently happened under his tenure at Liverpool, claiming he left him with over the hill players!

However, i'm not too sure I would agree with Roeder being there. The article seems to cite West Ham going down as the reason, yet fails to mention the fact that they were relegated on 42 points, a figure which this season will have you finished in 13th. I'm not saying he's terrific, but a bit harsh considering they fail to mention the points tally and the fact that he had serious health problems.

AckwelFoley

No Steve "Im the gaffer" Staunton?

Farce.

Kudos to the man who wrote the reviews of each manager.. very witty

LuckyLloyd

Does anyone remember the RTE documentary they did on Roddy Collins when he was the manager at Carlilse? Shocking stuff. He embodied ineptitude.

Souness is a legend in Turkey all the same.

AckwelFoley

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Does anyone remember the RTE documentary they did on Roddy Collins when he was the manager at Carlilse? Shocking stuff. He embodied ineptitude.

Souness is a legend in Turkey all the same.

Yes

I do remember that.

Hes been taken on board at some scottisg team now :eek:

Raskolnikov

Disappointed not to see Shoddy in there, I'd say if he gets another crack at an English job, we could see him make that list though

mikemac

Egil Olsen? Why is he even near that list?
Got Norway to the World Cup in 1990 and 1998.
And even got Norway to No. 2 in FIFA world rankings. Ok the world rankings mean little but some achievment.

So he got Wimbledon reglegated but no huge shame in that. He is at No.2 and is blamed for getting the club shut down. Nonsense!

Unearthly

Bit harsh on Souness. He did well at Rangers and Blackburn and is a legend in Turkey as noted.

Not great but hardly the worst.

As for beig responsible for where Liverpool are now. What a ridiculous lazy point to make. Every manager since has been well backed in terms of support and facilities available. Not Souness's fault they couldn't win stuff all the time.

ziggy

This post has been deleted.

LuckyLloyd

I mean, having Souness and Olsen down as among the 10 worst managers of all time is lazy journalism. Silly list.

mayordenis

Tusky wrote: »

Thats why I find it so hard to listen to Souness when hes talking about what should and shouldn't be done. He tried and failed. Surely he shouldnt be a pundit,

He has great insight into how to do things wrong.

Eirebear

Is that all the guardian writers do nowadays?

Lists lists list....really lazy journalism IMO

Pigman II

snyper wrote: »

No Steve "Im the gaffer" Staunton?

The ironic thing is Stan technically left us in a better position than when he joined. We were a 4th rate team when he took over and he left us as a 3rd rate team.

Same can't be said for Souness and I'm glad to see him topping that list. He really did have a striking ability to leave club after club in a worse position than when he joined them.

Unearthly

Pigman II wrote: »

The ironic thing is Stan technically left us in a better position than when he joined. We were a 4th rate team when he took over and he left us as a 3rd rate team.

but that's twisting things to the extreme.

Brian Kerr had a chance in coming 2nd(maybe even 1st?) in the last game, but Staunton was out of the race to come 2nd with 3 games remaining.

Our group when we finished 4th was really tight between the top 4

Charlie

Eirebear wrote: »

Is that all the guardian writers do nowadays?

Lists lists list....really lazy journalism IMO

Yeah, I have noticed this with the Guardian letely.

Whilst their podcast is enjoyable, it is starting to become somewhat preachy, and smug (Barry Glen-whathisface i'm looking at you).

OPENROAD

charlie mchugh wrote: »

Whilst their podcast is enjoyable, it is starting to become somewhat preachy, and smug (Barry Glen-whathisface i'm looking at you).

Agree, he seems to offer very little to the podcast.