Football 365's top 10 managers of 2011

padzilla

10) Neil Warnock (QPR)
If all three promoted sides stay in the Premier League, it is Neil Warnock who will get the least credit simply because he's had the most money. He has been allowed to bring in almost a whole new XI of players - some of whom who are on the kind of wages (Joey Barton and Shaun Wright-Phillips chief among them) that would pay for half Norwich's squad - to add to a team that had already eased to the Championship title.

But any manager who brings up a team from the Championship and keeps them around and about the point-per-game curve deserves at least some credit - especially when even those within the club query whether you're the right man for the task. One question, though: If QPR do go down, how will he blame Carlos Tevez?


9) David Moyes (Everton)
'Look at the league table now and you will wonder what on earth Moyes is doing on this list. But look at the statistics for the calendar year and you will see...' was the opening line of Moyes' entry on this list at the end of 2010. A year later and not a lot has changed. They ended the Premier League season in better form than Tottenham and then had to sell Jermaine Beckford, Yakubu and Mikel Arteta to leave themselves woefully short of goal threat. Consequently, 2011-12 has not begun well at all.

Moyes continues to make, if not silk, then some kind of durable synthetic material out of a sow's ear. While those financial constraints exist, mid-table is the equivalent of a title challenge. Lord help them if he leaves for sunnier climes.


8) Roberto Mancini (Manchester City)
There are some who would never have Roberto Mancini on such a list simply because he is not working within the same parameters as other managers. But a lack of parameters comes with its own problems - managing egos, managing a squad, managing expectations. Budgeting may not be a problem but managerial problems never end with budgets.

The first half of 2011 saw him meet targets with controlled ease - a Champions League place and a trophy. The second half of 2011 seems him on track for the second target - a genuine title challenge. As a side, he has delivered tantalising football boosted by the acquisition of Sergio Aguero. It's Aguero's arrival coupled with his own high standing within the club that saw him backed to the hilt in the Carlos Tevez debacle. Mancini is slowly becoming more important than the money.


7) Sir Alex Ferguson (Manchester United)
His team have amassed the most Premier League points in 2011, claimed the title with quite a few inches to spare and are very much in the race again despite their rivals and neighbours spending oodles of money this summer. And yet he's only 7) on this list with six managers below him who have won bugger all this year.

So where does he lose points? Mostly for facing Barcelona in the Champions League final and quite clearly having absolutely no clue how to beat them despite Ferguson boasting of a 'plan'. The 'plan' was rubbish. And now he's led a team to a disastrous European campaign that ended in ignominy/Switzerland. Oh and the jury is still out on his £19m keeper. It's a year that's brought another title but it feels like it might be the last for a while.


6) Kenny Dalglish (Liverpool)
When Dalglish took over from Roy Hodgson (our manager of the year in 2009), Liverpool were languishing in lower mid-table. By the end of the season, they were in sixth and that - on current form at least - is where they will probably end 2011/12. That they are already double figures away from the leaders is irrelevant - this season is all about taking Liverpool back to the top table. Missing out on the Champions League will be acceptable as long as they're within touching distance and putting up a fight. Dalglish has given Liverpool fans their self-respect again in 2011.

The signings have been distinctly hit (Luis Suarez) and miss (Andy Carroll) but it's fair to say that the club is a far happier place to be as 2011 becomes 2012 than it was when 2010 became 2011. The real test comes in 2012 now expectations have been raised.


5) Alan Pardew (Newcastle United)
Chris Hughton was a place higher on this list 12 months ago - following what appeared to be the terrible, terrible decision to give him the sack. Newcastle were 13th and on course for the mid-table finish that Pardew would go on to secure, but Hughton's face clearly did not fit at what used to be St James' Park. Pardew was a highly unpopular appointment as fans derided him as Mike Ashley's Cockney puppet.

An early blow came with the sale of Andy Carroll and the lack of time or funds for a replacement, but Pardew guided Newcastle through the rest of the season before implementing a summer plan to lose those players with big egos and big wages. They were replaced by cheaper, decidedly more French, alternatives and Newcastle started the season in barnstorming fashion. They may yet be pulled into the mediocrity below, but for now we should heartily applaud Pardew's 2011.


4) Tony Pulis (Stoke City)
As 2011 becomes 2012, Stoke are likely to be in roughly the same position as they ended 2010 - mid-table and safe from relegation but short of a European challenge. Is that enough considering the significant funds spent this summer? In normal circumstances then perhaps not, but Stoke reached an FA Cup final, claimed a Europa League place and have made a bloody good fist of challenging on two fronts.

While other managers moan about having two games in a week, Pulis has embraced the challenge and taken the Potters through to the Europa knock-out stages while still doing enough at home to easily maintain their status as the most recent addition to the 'Premier League stalwart' club. Pretty? No. Pretty efective? Oh yes.


3) Harry Redknapp (Tottenham)
Making this list for the fourth successive season (and people think we don't like him) is a manager who has lost only seven Premier League games so far in 2011 and has also claimed the not-inconsiderable scalp of AC Milan. Too many draws in March and April cost Tottenham a second successive season in the Champions League but they end 2011 on course to return for another crack in 2011/12.

But Redknapp's finest work came off the pitch as he persuaded Daniel Levy to make a decision based on football rather than business and sign Scott Parker, persuaded Emmanuel Adebayor to give him a year of his time and decided that the 40-year-old Brad Friedel was worth at least another season in the top flight. All this and he got Jonathan Woodgate, Alan Hutton, Robbie Keane, Wilson Palacios and Peter Crouch off the wage bill. Or rather the 'chairman's done a deal...'


2) Brendan Rodgers (Swansea)
The little fella with the highest pass completion rate in the Premier League was bought by Brendan Rodgers for just £400,000 in January. That man is Leon Britton and he was followed by the finest free signing of the summer - goalkeeper Michel Vorm. Add goalscorer Danny Graham for £3.5m and Rodgers has bought the spine of his team for less than £4m. No wonder he's become one of the hottest managerial properties in the Premier League.

Promotion from the Championship was secured via the play-offs after poor spring form saw them lose the momentum that should have taken them straight to the top flight. Frankly, they were everybody's favourites to challenge Derby's unwanted 11-point record but have instead proved very, very difficult to beat at the Liberty Stadium - even if they are awfully easy to beat on the road.

There was some scoffing when Swansea appointed a manager who had failed so miserably at Reading, but it looks increasingly likely that Rodgers needed am ambitious club prepared to buy into his vision of Welsh tika-taka.


1) Paul Lambert (Norwich City)
Nick Miller tells me that his Norwich-supporting, heterosexual friend would happily fellate Paul Lambert in gratitude for the phenomenal job he has done at Carrow Road. We're only dealing with 2011 right now so we'll gloss over the promotion from League One and fast-forward straight to post-Xmas Championship form of suffering just two defeats in 2011 before securing promotion to the Premier League.

Lambert's recruitment policy of going for hunger (see Grant Holt) over experience is paying serious dividends as the summer purchases of Steve Morison, Anthony Pilkington and Bradley Johnson already look shrewd. If their home form can keep them ahead of the point-per-game mark, they should survive to face the second-season syndrome that has previously claimed Reading and Hull.

The football may not be pretty but Holt and Morison are masters at bullying defenders used to facing a little more finesse, and Lambert is a master of getting the best out of unheralded footballers desperate to prove they belong at the big table.

One final word of warning, mind - this time last year, Ian Holloway was the manager of 2010.

rcoobc

*2011.

All but the top 2 are kinda fair enough. Oh and number 6. Actually the whole list is rubbish.

Twigginater

Seems rather random.

For example, Roy got West Brom from the relegation zone, into 11th last season, and currently sit 3 points behind Stoke.

Ferguson is 7th and Mancini 8th, and Redknapp is 3rd. Ferguson loses points for not beating Barce, but Redknapp doesn't seem to lose any for going out of a shit Europa League group.

Ole's_toe_poke

Dalglish.

He's been shit.

Leg-End

SAF behind Dalglish

Winning a title doesn't mean anything if you can't beat the best team in the world in the biggest club competition final in the world folks.

ha_rooney

"Oh and the jury is still out on his £19m keeper. It's a year that's brought another title but it feels like it might be the last for a while."

"Dalglish has given Liverpool fans their self-respect again in 2011."

Oldham

why?

Annihilate Now!

If this wasn't consigned to just the Premiership... Lee Clark would certainly be near the top.

rcoobc

I'll put my balls on the line and do my own list:

1) Redknapp
2) Mancini
3) Ferguson
4) Pardew
5) Pulis
6) Moyes
7) Wenger

Lambert, Rodgers and Warnock do deserve to be in there but we could argue where until the cows come home so I have left them out.

Mr Anderson

I smell bullshit, no Steve Kean??

Twigginater

Redknapp #1?

Fuck. That.

Twigginater

1. Ferguson
2. Wenger
3. Lambert
4. Mancini
5. Hodgson
6. Pulis

for me.

Bottom would be

1. Coyle
2. Kean
3. Bruce ( )

Annihilate Now!

Looking at it objectively as possible... I'd probably put Pardew at number #1.

When he got the job, the Newcastle fans were less then enthusiastic about his appointment/angry that Hughton (who had done a great job with them) had been forced out... but now his name is being chanted from the stands, he's built an excellent first XI on small resources, and just generally done a cracking job with them.

That'sHernandez

Are you serious? Spurs failed to achieve fourth last season and 'Arry was also given first refusal on Suarez, wasn't he? And he rejected him because he thought he already had VDV, essentially blaming VDV for Spurs not signing Suarez. If Spurs want to go further than they have got with 'Arry, 'Arry needs to go.

I can agree with this. For #2 it has to be Mancini or SAF for me, Mancini has done a good job so far of managing a lot of big players and egos in his team and go them to play together, he also had a late surge last season and only finished below Chelsea because of goal difference. I was also rather impressed with the way he has handled the Tevez saga.

FortBoyard

That is one of the poorest opinions I have read on a football forum. Redknapp has built a very good squad at Spurs and deserves plenty of plaudits for it.

africanspur

What the fuck? Redknapp has done an excellent job with Spurs, assembling an excellent squad, getting us into the CL, getting us to the quarter finals of the CL despite everyone delighting in telling us our naivety in the competition would likely lead to an exit before the group stages, breaking the Arsenal hoodoo, breaking the top 4 away hoodoo and getting us to 3rd in the table going into 2012. All this playing good football and with a respectable net spend.

I know Redknapp doesn't have the pedigree of some of the other managers in the league for his previous jobs, fair enough, but if a foreign manager was doing what Redknapp is doing at the moment, people would be going crazy about him.

As for Suarez, very good player for sure. Very much over-rated though. And a large part of the reason we didn't finish 4th last season was because our strikers couldn't finish. Signing a player who has scored 5 league goals this season and 9 out of 29 in total, for 7 million higher than our transfer record, is hardly transfer genius.

rcoobc

Redknapp number 1 because he has built a "potentially" "title winning" squad. Yeah I know, now we are going to be arguing about that with at least 3 people calling me an idiot, but he has done spectacularly well to build this squad, especially in the last 12 months. I do take in mind failures in cups, the Europa League, and not the greatest second half to last season ever, but the performances of Tottenham since the break make up for that.

Mancini is second because he took City to their first trophy in 35 years, and because City would be in first place at Christmas and New Year (if City played on the 31st). Mancini has also had to handle a very hostile volatile atmosphere in the dressing room very well.

Ferguson only 3rd because United fell out of the Champions League and lost in the FA Cup and League Cup. Champions yes, Champions League finalists yes, but those things bump him down to 3rd.

Pardew 4th for obvious reasons.

5th goes to Pulis as he has taken Stoke to the Europa League knockouts, created a squad with depth, and took them to the FA Cup final.

Moyes is 6th because Everton's second half to last season was as good as nearly all teams in England, and because he isn't actually doing badly this year with a depleted squad.

7th is Wenger because of his teams implosion since the League Cup final in all competitions and only finishing 4th, but since losing 2 of his best players has kept Arsenal in Europe and kept them in the hunt for 4th.

w'or bobby

How Dalgliesh is as highly rated beats me.

Mebbe cos Torres was sold for 50 mill ?
Not if you waste 35 on that long useless streak of misery that is Andy Caroll.

Mebbe cos he's Kenny Dalgliesh?
Hasn't exactly covered himself in glory over the Suarez debacle, has he?
In fact, he's been a miserable knobhead who has further dragged his club into disrepute, defending the indefensible.

Results?
Meh, are they really better?
Not so sure.

I do have a good deal of bias.
I wouldn't want 'em to win a game of tiddlywinks - but is it me or is he really overrated?

Denis' cuff

"Mancini is second because he took City to their first trophy in 35 years, and because City would be in first place at Christmas and New Year (if City played on the 31st). Mancini has also had to handle a very hostile volatile atmosphere in the dressing room very well.

Ferguson only 3rd because United fell out of the Champions League and lost in the FA Cup and League Cup. Champions yes, Champions League finalists yes, but those things bump him down to 3rd."

to quote that erudite and oft used phrase on here: "wow. Just wow".

an FA cup win costing half a billion and a volotile dressing room of your own making rate higher than a league title and CL final on a David Moyes budget

Ixion

No other manager in the country would be ranked 7th after winning the league, not one.

Denis' cuff

correct - but this is the media who are constantly arse licking Sir Alex

Agent Red

Dalgish 6th and ahead of Fergie? In the year of no. 19? Farcical list.

rcoobc

His own making?


I welcome your own list, if you can use numbers as well as you used the quote function. Mancini has taken a poisoned chalice, and taken them to the top of the table.

Judge for yourself.

SteveJ

Obvious curveball with Dalglish ranked above SAF, a list designed to be controversial & attract hits/comments. Yawn. Football365's gone downhill quicker than Hodgson & Lee in that GIF.

Agent Red

The only explanation really, hit seeking above a good article. Shame, there was a thread like it in the newbies and it's a good topic.

rcoobc

F365 always play to the Liverpudlian support. Few are as brave to do their own though.

Agent Red

I'd probably go 1) Fergie 2) Redknapp 3) Mancini 4) Pardew 5) Pulis 6) Moyes 7) Lambert 8) Wenger 9) Rogers 10) Hodgson

Brosstan

Top 3 for me

Redknapp
Fergie
Mancini

Dalglish above Ferguson is bordeline retarded. No wait, it is retarded.

Denis' cuff

There we are - happier now? Wasn't going to bother quoting but........ never mind. If you did relevance as well as you do pettiness you'd understand that Mancini is the manager and his job is to manage his players largely of his choosing, prima donnas included. All half a billion pounds worth of them and yay, he won the FA cup. Let's stick to forum etiquette though eh? You understand it better than management.

Hal9000

Paul Lambert deserves his #1

I know it's only 2011, but for someone who, two seasons ago, took a team with 2 wins from 10 to promotion, and then promotion again next season. Now has that team sitting nicely in middle table of the Premier League. Deserves his applause

Denis' cuff

aye, that's some going, particularly on a low budget. Tough climb for him but it might be tougher to stay the course. Anyway, that's 2012, we'll see.

Zen

I like how people always use where a team was when a manager took over to point out how 'good' they've done.....because yeah, Liverpool would of stayed near the relegation zone had Rafa stayed, even though I thought they done some good moves in the summer, they basically haven't changed from 09/10 and 11/12....so Dalglish really hasn't done nothing, Roy just had some horrid luck and players who refused to play for him.

They did the same for Redknapp when they kept saying they were like 18th when he took over, despite them having 2 games in hand and still probably would of ended up about 6th or 7th had Ramos stayed.

Number7

Just last year everyone was praising Sir Alex for 'taking a poor squad to the league title and champions league final'

rcoobc

Yup agreed, Dalglish does have a better record at Liverpool than Roy, but they haven't really improved since then. Even if they have its only marginal.

africanspur

We had 2 points from 8 games under Ramos, with no games in hand, playing like shit and rock bottom in the league. Even with the 'new manager bounce' under Redknapp and a large outlay in January, we only started to pull away from the bottom 3 in March/April. Our form had been shit under Ramos the season before after the carling cup too.

There were no guarantees we were going down but we had a very genuine chance. In my opinion, left to his own devices, Ramos was relegating us. There was no balance to his squad and he had no understanding of how to play the bread and butter games in the league.

Cold_Boy

This list was clearly created by a Scoucer.

Sunny Jim

Dalglish shound not even make it to this list. he has achieved nothing in 2011.

Twigginater

Harry Redknapp played 19 games in this calendar year at the end of last season.

He won 7.

He drew with West Ham, Wolves, Wigan, Arsenal,Blackpool, West Brom, Man United. And lost to Blackpool and Everton.

He's gone out of an easy Europa League group. He got knocked out of the League Cup at Stoke. He went out of the FA Cup in 2011 with a 4-0 loss at Fulham. And whilst his two leg beating of AC Milan fell in this calendar year, so did his humilation at the hands of Real Madrid.

So basically this year he's failed in every cup he's in, had a woeful run at the end of last season, has got charged for tax fraud (or something) but started this league campaign well.

rcoobc

When you put it like that he doesn't deserve to be number 1, good points. This season he is 7 points behind the leaders with a game in hand however, and has the strength in depth to keep it up.

Can someone make a 2011 table? I'll do it later if no one does, once the girlfriend stops asking me to get off the laptop.

Twigginater

I don't know about since the start of 2010, but since Roy Hodgson took over at WBA.

Roy has played 30 games, and average 1.4 points a game

Kenny's pool have played 29 games, averaging around 1.72 points a game

Tottenham have played 29 games and averaged 1.82 points a game.

Man United have played 30 games and averaged 2.17 points a game.