Football News: Top 10 Managers

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Top 10 Managers

10. Mauricio Pellegrini - West Ham United

There is a lot to like about Pellegrini, his teams play good, watchable, entertaining football. They are well organised and work as a unit to get results. He has also proved himself able to get the most out of lesser players and can do more than just win things with the best players at his disposal.

9. Quique Setien - N/A

His teams play some of the best football in Europe and it was a stupid decision by Real Betis to let him go. It was not so long ago that Barcelona were wanting to be their manager and Betis were begging him to stay. They forgot how far he had taken them and had ridiculous expectations of success far beyond their means. They will regret losing him and someone else will get themselves a top class manager.

8. Nuno Espirito Santo - Wolverhampton Wanderers

Working wonders with Wolves, keeping a settled team and then tweaking it to make it work, rather than making huge sweeping panicky changes when it is not quite working. Swept all before him with a 3-4-3 in the Championship but it struggled in the Prem, so he adjusted slightly to a 3-5-2 to gain more control in midfield. It worked and Wolves finished in the top half, in large part thanks to his management.

7. Marcelino - Valencia

He looks like a little leprechaun hopping around excitedly on the sidelines but he has proven himself to be a very good manager, particularly now at Valencia. It is easy to forget how good he is at his job when you watch him, as his antics can disguise his ability, but he is one of the best.

6. Marcelo Gallardo - River Plate

Worshipped in Argentina for good reason, he is almost certainly the best manager outside of Europe right now. Difficult to compare him with those in Europe until/if he makes the move to a European league.

5. Sergio Conceicao - Porto

Is creating a strong team in Porto, despite having had to offload a large number of players initially to balance the books. Despite that, he has made them competitive in the Champions League.

4. Lucien Favre - Borussia Dortmund

Revived Dortmund and restored them once more to being title challengers after showing himself to be a very good manager over a long period of years. He now has to maintain it, despite having two big spending clubs to compete with in the Bundesliga, who usually cherry pick off the best of their players.

3. Julien Nagelsmann - RB Leipzig

Young he may be, but he has shown himself to be an excellent, forward thinking manager. Along with the likes of Conceicao, he is the future of European football and is a great choice for big spending Leipzig to build a long term team around.

2. Gian Piero Gasperini - Atalanta

Nagelsmann is the youthful face of the game, but Gasperini is the elder statesman who has emerged to great effect. Atalanta have never been a big side, they had never qualified for Europe before Gasperini took them into it and next season will be their first ever Champions League campaign. All of it is down to the brilliance of Gasperini.

1. Jurgen Klopp - Liverpool

It may just be bias talking, but I simply cannot look past Klopp over the course of last season. He did not start out with a great team, but he has built one. Costly, yes, but he has shown in the past that he does not need money to create a team, he improves players and brings them together as a unit.

I know you are all thinking right now, well maybe not all but most of you, what about Pep Guardiola? After all he did win the English Premier League ahead of Klopp, Santo and Pellegrini, but he took over the best squad in the league and then added huge amounts of players to it. He has never proven he can build for the long term, and this is the first time he has not just taken a team backwards after taking over. Barcelona were a great side and Bayern Munich were the best side in Europe when he took over. They were not as good when he had been coaching them for a couple of years. Also he needs to show he can do more than win after inheriting the best side in the league.

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Written by Tris Burke July 24 2019 07:59:14