Managers Of Your Club

[Mellberg]

Who has managed your club in the years you'be been watching and what do you think of them? Shamelessly stolen from Jimmy, but worth a stand alone thread as it gives us all the chance to ramble on about the past.

Ron Atkinson - he might've used Earl Barrett and Dalian Atkinson to do his gardening, but what a quotable beast of a man. Nearly won the league (Steve Bruce and enough added time to fill a few ITV advert breaks) and won the League Cup. Don.

(Sir) Brian Little - number one on the list for me, which is helped slightly by the fact he was also a brilliant player for us (helped lay the foundations for the European Cup win. Retired crocked a year or so before that though) and in another life would've quietly attended to his allotment. Last seen managing Gainsborough Trinity in 2011, a fall which I don't understand considering his success with us and Leicester. Won the League Cup, highest finish fourth.


John Gregory - character extraordinare. "If I had a gun I'd have shot him" on Dwight Yorke's move to United. Highest finish was I think sixth and took us to an FA Cup final, which he has since admitted he fucked up. Sent millions to sleep with defensive tactics despite having attacking players as gifted as Merson, Carbone, Hadji and Hendrie. Other than that we were decent to watch. Signed some brilliant players too, as well as Steve Watson.

Graham Taylor - I was at his first game against Chelsea and it was a mental atmosphere. Proper hero's welcome. Unfortunately he was shit. Failed to live up to his first stint when we finished second and he signed Yorke, Platt and McGrath. One season - finished 16th.

David O'Leary - complete cunt. Highest finish sixth.

Martin O'Neill - my thoughts on Mad Mart have been made clear many times. Three sixth place finishes and a League Cup final in which we woz robbed, but considering the funds at his disposal ol' pubehead came up short. He and Lerner in tandem drove us into the ground financially, which is one of the main factors as to why we're going down this year. Alongside appointing this next gaggle of wankers.

Gérard Houllier - spent the majority of his time here fawning over Liverpool and playing down expectations. First of six consecutive relegation battles masked by a couple of wins against Arsenal and Liverpool at the end of the season, meaning we finished in the most undeserved ninth place in the history of sport. Is also fat.

Alex McLeish - we actually bought this fool out of his contract. Employed out of spite after a supporter's protest, as the board had recently buckled during a similar situation with McLaren. Introduced such tactical brainwaves as Heskey on the left wing with Alan Hutton on the other. The only wings I'd have that pair on would be those of Icarus from Sunshine as it hurtled into the sun. 16th.

Paul Lambert - I was genuinely excited when we appointed him. Turns out he was a dour, uninspired simpleton, which was a massive turn up with him being Scottish. Best finish, erm, 15th?

Tim Sherwood - Gobby cockney geeza who you'd have thought had cured cancer with all that he bigs himself up. In his defence, it worked to start with and we managed to blag our way into another season in the division, but he was soon found to have less upstairs than Anne Frank. Highest finish 17th, humiliated in the FA Cup final.

Remi Garde - feel sorry for him. Club's been butchered over the last few years and he's been left with a squad full of uninterested wankers with little footballing ability. Still, could be worse, he could be French...

Oh.

Honourary mention to Ron Saunders - "Would you back against us?" :drool:

[Clunge]

As a Villa fan, +1 to all of that. I actually think Garde is a really good appointment, but he's boarded a sinking ship.

Gregory gets kudos for signing the best and worst strikers of my lifetime - the hopeless Bosko Balaban and the mighty Juan Pablo Angel. God I love that man :D.

Also, I will never forgive Lambert for buying Carlos Sanchez. He is absolutely fucking diabolical.

[igor_balis]

Gary Megson - god
Bryan Robson - shite
Tony Mowbray - god
Roberto Di Matteo - decent
Roy Hodgson - turgid
Steve Clarke - was great then shite
Pepe Mel - lol
Alan Irvine - looked like Father Ted, shite
Tony Pulis - decent but beyond turgid

[Charlie]

Only Sam Allardyce matters, and he is essentially king of Bolton for what he helped us achieve.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Sir Alex Ferguson - God
David Moyes - Out of his depth
Louis Van Gaal - Clueless wanker who insists on playing bullshit possession football.

[Manc]

Shankly - Win percentage 51.98%
Rodgers - 52%

Bring him back. :drool:

[Jimmy Floyd]

I'll repost mine with rankings at the bottom.

My Chelsea managers:

Hoddle: seemed good at the time, then started listening to Eileen Dover or whatever her name was and turned into an idiot.

Gullit: seemed good at the time with his dreads and his sexy football, later turned out to be a terrible coach and person who even now goes to Richard Keys's parties. Daft little suit, silly bloke, fuck off.

Vialli: bald, cool dude but then spent the next fifteen years drinking coffee, so clearly a waste of time.

Ranieri: the best man in football, which isn't hard, but still.

Mourinho I: hard as nails, boring football, success we'd never dreamed of.

Grant: the sort of bloke Mossad would have sent to assassinate your hamster.

Scolari: started off with this big dominant enforcer reputation, by the end it was like him and Ray Wilkins were a pair of ageing gay bears.

Hiddink: turned around our fortunes that season but there was something not quite right about it, like his wages were being paid with the blood of Russian orphans.

Ancelotti: The 2009-10 season was our greatest ever side and I'll always remember him for that.

Villas Boas: younger than half the players and spent most of his six months acting out a flaccid penis on the touchline. Total idiot.

Di Matteo: should serve as the guiding light for the club because he had absolutely no idea where he was or what he was doing, and yet won us the Champions League.

Benitez: just a complete pus-ridden vapid cunt of a man who is on a mission to ruin your enjoyment of football. Hint: Liverpool fans think he's great. Just think about that.

Mourinho II: Had gone slightly mental in the interim but won us the title again ffs.

1. Ancelotti
2. Mourinho I
3. Ranieri
4. Mourinho II
5. Vialli
6. Di Matteo
7. Hiddink
8. Gullit
9. Hoddle
10. Grant, somehow, which says a lot about those below the Avram Line.
11. Scolari
12. Villas Boas
13. Benitez

The reason I've put the fat controller and his precious trophy below the completely useless AVB is that at least AVB was trying to do something, albeit in his own special brand of shit. What did I call him at the time, Crouching Wanker Hidden Talent. With Sir Rafa it was just painting by numbers absurd misery and this is meant to be an enjoyable game. Nobody should have to put up with Benitez being in charge of their club.

[John]

Walter Smith I - Most of my memory of this spell exists as sort of mental YouTube videos, little moments almost entirely devoid of context but which bring me immense joy all the same. We had players like Brian Laudrup, Paul Gascoigne, and Jorg Albertz. Marco Negri scored thirty goals by Christmas and was never seen again, Jorg Albertz hit a free kick that broke the sound barrier, Gazza and Laudrup combined to frustrate at least ten men to death. It's a bit of a shame that little hobbity Dutch twat turned up across the city to deny him ten in a row, because the man deserved that distinction. Responsible for the greatest interview in the history of sports during this spell.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG27qGTMXa4

Dick Advocaat - Brought in a load of very good players, played some very good football, won a couple of leagues. Then bought some rubbish players for far too much money, left the side laughably unbalanced, and ended up leaving us laughably unbalanced and halfway through a season in which we weren't good enough.

Alex McLeish - Evened us out after Advocaat lost the plot and won the title in his first full season, and played some very good football at times, but ultimately not great. In his last season we finished third, for fuck sake.

Paul le Guen - Came in with a massive reputation and immediately set about ruining it. Fell out with players all over the place, played terrible football, and bought terrible players. A complete arsehole.

Walter Smith II - Heroic once again. Came into a club in shambles and immediately righted it, going on to win three titles in a row.

Ally McCoist - A legend as a player, but he was never a manager and everyone, including him, knew it. How it ultimately took over three years for him to move aside I will never know, and I'd rather not think about him as a money grabbing wanker scrabbling for a payout.

Mark Warburton - If this had been done about a month ago I think I'd have been fawning over him here, but there are some fairly substantial cracks beginning to appear. He doesn't want to work on a plan B because he wants to make plan A better, which sounds like some serious Brendan Rodgers wank. His absolute insistence that we play out from the back when we have a jittery goalkeeper and two lumpy central defenders who aren't much use with the ball at their feet will be the end of me, I reckon. The football looks nice, but that lack of a plan B is going to hurt us more and more as the season goes on, as more teams realise that if they sit behind the ball we can never get a striker in behind and nobody is willing to have a pop.

[ItalAussie]

Marcelo Lippi: One of the greatest managers in football history, and we were lucky to have him. There isn't a single manager in the game I'd have taken ahead of him. He won the lot, and built Juventus back into a force in modern football. We were the best team in the world during his first run, and pretty damn good during his second. Basically faultless.

Carlo Ancelotti: A decent manager, but didn't click with the club. Probably got sacked a little bit too easily, as always happens after highly successful managers.

Fabio Capello: Was great for us, and won us a couple of titles. I like to think we underperformed slightly in Europe during his tenure though. Presided over the match-fixing scandal (which we were definitely guilty of, no excuses there), and you have to wonder how much he knew about it, which ultimately led to his resignation.

Didier Deschamps: To be honest, I thought he was better than his short reign would suggest. Clashed with the club, which eventually led to him leaving. But the fact that he came to the club when he did, and got us back into the Serie A, deserves credit. I'd have been happy with him bedding in for the long-term.

Claudio Ranieri: A nice enough person, but he wasn't good enough for Juventus, and had a pretty bad time of it. Not so bad as to be utterly shambolic, but at the same time, he just never worked at all. Him moving on was good for him and good for us.

Ciro Ferrara: Didn't really have a good time of it.

Alberto Zaccheroni: Probably the worst out of everyone in the list. Just terrible.

Luigi Delneri: A string of really poor appointments here. Bleak times. Happily, this run was ended by...

Antonio Conte: The second-most successful manager in the list, and he did an oustanding job. Got us back to the top. Won a bunch of titles. Gelled the team together, and picked up Andrea Pirlo for free to build the team around. Excellent tactical mind. Underperformed slightly in Europe relative to the quality of the teamsheet, but set us up for a few good cracks at the latter stages of the competition. I was mortified when he left for Italy, but he deserved the role.

Massimiliano Allegri: I was really worried when he took over, because I'd never rated him at all. But in actuality, he's done a really good job. The team is clearly going to need a rebuild soon, but I've been really impressed with his tenure in the league, and in Europe. He's starting to get the pieces in place for the future (Dybala, etc.), so I'm really happy with him thus far. He doesn't have the managerial ability of Conte, I think, but he's doing really well, and I think we're on track. This season is a bit of a blip, but it's a rebuilding season - as long as we make the top three, it's job done.

THE GOOD
1. Lippi
2. Conte
3. Capello
4. Allegri
5. Deschamps

THE BAD
6. Ancelotti
7. Ranieri
8. Ferrara

THE UGLY
9. Delneri
10. Zaccheroni


EDIT: (Allegri could climb up a rank if things go well for him over the next couple of seasons)

[Lee]

Great thread.

Brian Little

Absolute hero. The season before he joined we finished 20th in the old Second Division, fending off a first ever relegation to the third tier only with a last day victory over Oxford United. We'd struggled in the division ever since being relegated from the top flight in '87. Little changed that immediately. He brought in unfashionable players to an unfashionable club with barely two pennies to rub together and managed to get us to Wembley in play off finals in each of his three full seasons in charge. We lost the first two to Blackburn and Swindon before beating Derby in the '94 final to win promotion to the Premier League. We never really had a hope of staying up the following season and were already struggling badly when he left for Villa in November '94. They way he was treated by our fans when he left was a disgrace. He built the foundations for the success we'd see later on and Villa was his club. He did a great job there too. Nothing but respect for the man.

Mark McGhee

McGhee replaced Little having been recommended to us by Alex Ferguson who managed him as a player at Aberdeen. He joined from Reading with whom he'd won the Division Two title the season before and was now making a charge with them for promotion to the top flight. He was never going to keep us up but he did get us playing some relly nice football and we were far and away the best side in Division One at the beginning of 95/96. We started to tail off a bit but he was highly thougt of and Wolves came in for him about a third of the way through the season. He left because he wanted to join a bigger club (something he now regrets saying). Wolves finished 20th, his successor won us promotion and much, much more.

Martin O'Neill

He almost never came. Mike Walker had the job sewn up until O'Neill quit Norwich after just a few months after a row with their chairman, Robert Chase. And when we appointd him he very nearly didn't last. We went something like his first nine games without a win and things came to a head with the supporters after a terrible 0-2 home defeat by Sheffield United. He had to stay behind and talk to the fans who refused to leave the ground until he did so. Many fans wrote letters to him slagging him off in that period. He'd later telephone each any every one of them to ask them their thoughts once things came good. :D

Anyway, he made a few key signings, we went on an unbeaten run, made the play offs and won them, winning promotion back to the Premier League after a one season absence. He left us for Celtic in 2000 after having led us to four consecutive top ten finishes and two League Cup wins. He was fantastic. I'll always love the man.

Peter Taylor

What a cunt. He was the next big thing when we appointed him having done good jobs with the England under 21s and Gillingham. He even managed England for a game against Italy after Kevin Keegan quit, famously handing the captaincy to David Beckham. He started really well, results-wise. We were unbeaten and top in October and were still hanging around the top five into March, although in truth we had played pretty badly all season. We deservedly lost at home to Wycombe in the FA Cup 6th Round after Teletext player Roy Essandoh's late winner and we neve recovered.

We lost something like 8 of our last 9 games of the 2000-2001 season and dropped to 13th. The writing was on the wall the following season when we lost our first game 0-5 against newly promoted Bolton at home. He was sacked with us bottom of the league in October 2001 having spent nearly £30m (all on utter shit), a huge amount in those days. I hope he has a fall.

Dave Bassett

For fuck's sake. I'm sure we only appointed him because he was the bookies' favourite every time the job came up pre-O'Neill and we thought they must be on to something. We finished bottom. Why wouldn't we have? He was fucking shit. Our final season at Filbert Street ended with relegation with this useless tosser in charge.

Micky Adams

Adams did a brilliant job under very difficult circumstances. We were promoted back to the Premier League as comfortable runners up at the first attempt but were in real trouble off the pitch as we went into administration. We had players playing for free that season so to get us up at all ws a magnificent feat. Unfortunately the squad was full of old players and the mentality wasn't good enough for the Premier League. We lost a lot of points from winning positions (including a 3-4 home defeat by Wolves after having been 3-0 up at half time) amd went down in 18th. He was sacked part way through the next season with us 8th in the league. We'd spend much of the next decade dreaming of being that high in the pyramid again.

Craig Levein

I quite liked Levein. He came from Hearts with a decent reputation and set about trying to build a young squad capable of developing over a number of seasons which was the right approach given he had no cash to play with. In the end he only stayed for a touch over a year. His reign did include a televised 3-2 FA Cup win against Spurs in which we came back from 0-2 down but that really was the only highlight. He was sacked in January 2006 with us in the Championship's bottom three.

Rob Kelly

Was a nice enough chap and did well to keep us up in 2005/6 but he wasn't ever going to be anything but a stop gap. He was sacked after Milan Mandaric (massive cunt) took over with us again near the bottom of the league in the spring of 2007. He was replaced on a caretaker basis by Nigel Worthington who got us enough points to keep us up by the skin of our teeth.

Martin Allen

Allen was Mandaric's first proper appointment and was tasked with leading us to promotion after the Serb's much needed investment. He was basically a mentalist. He got players cleaning bogs and gardening and was sacked, presumably for being a nutter although we'll never really know, after just three league games in charge.

Gary Megson

Took over from Allen and fucked off to Bolton six weeks later. Good; he was a boring cunt.

Ian Holloway

He is a massive arsehole. I was delighted when he joined, he'd done a great job with Plymouth and it seemed to be an appointment in the Little/McGhee/O'Neill mould of promising lower league manager. Unfortunately he was just shit and we were relegated to the third tier for the first time in our history in 2007/8. It still rankles that we sunk so low. I hope him and Peter Taylor have sex and get AIDS.

Nigel Pearson, Part One

I was disappointed with his appointment to be honest, but that was more out of ignorance of his ability that anything else. He wom us the League One title easily and did brilliantly with relatively little money to have us in the play offs in the Championship in his second season. His first stint in charge was the first time I'd felt any pride in the club for years. He was disgracefully shafted by Mandaric in the summer of 2010 In favour of Paulo Sousa - a bigger name manager who Mandaric could use to make us more attractive to potemtial buyers.

Paulo Sousa

He didn't last five minutes. His was a strange tenure. We'd often create loads of chances but put none away and we conceded loads. He wasn't popular with the fans; a combination of the circumstances under which he was appointed and him being a bit shit. The final straw for most came after a televised 1-6 defeat by struggling Portsmouth. He was gone a game or two later. Sousa isn't a bad manager, as he has proven since, but he was guilty of trying to impose a stlye of play well beyond the ability of Pearson's limited but organised squad.

Sven Goran Eriksson

I fucking loved Sven. Yeah, he spent loads but he wasn't far away from having it all come together. In his first season he had us playing some fantastic football as he took us from the bottom three to the verge of the play offs. We did start the next season fairly badly but it wasn't disastrous. When he was sacked, after an admitttedly poor 0-3 home defeat by Millwall, we were 13th but only two points off the play offs. I still think it was a harsh decision.

Nigel Pearson, Part Two

I have mixed feelings about Pearson's second go with us. He definitely did a great job with us. Our title winning season was so good and our escape from relegation last season was brilliant. But he is a deeply flawed manager as well as a flawed man. We should have been promoted a season earlier than we were. We were second in the league going into February 2013 and playing wonderfully. We then went on an awful run and it took an injury time winner at Forest on the final day of the season to allow us to sneak into the play offs. At no point during that run did he look like he knew how to change things.

And as great as last season was he was the man who had us bottom for most of it, with a squad which was miles from being the worst in the league. After a good start he went deliberately negative because he was concerned about our leaky defence after we beat Man Utd 5-3 at home. We were awful for months and his approach cost us an opportunity to make an FA Cup final given our favourable draw. Our set up at Villa Park in the 5th round was disgusting. And away from the football he was a madman. Although it was his son's behaviour which got him sacked in the end. I was gutted when I found out he got sacked though (I was abroad and not paying attention). He did a great job over two spells but unfortunately he is his own worst enemy.

Claudio Ranieri

He looks fucking amazing so far. And even if it all goes to shit he still gets to be the nicest man in football, which is frankly far more important than being good at winning games.

[Lewis]

Brian Little is also a hero in Hull. He didn't quite save the club, but he stopped them being shit and laid the foundations for the promotions to come.

[igor_balis]

John, THAT Walter Smith interview was fucking amazing. What was the back-story?

[igor_balis]

Brian Little is certainly not a hero in West Bromwich, was taking us to the third tier before Lord Megson saved us.

[John]

John, THAT Walter Smith interview was fucking amazing. What was the back-story?

We'd lost against someone rubbish in Europe, AEK I think. The rest of it's in the video.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Jesus fuck you've had some shitters. Dave Bassett :D

[Browning]

Danny Wilson- A clown who subbed out only decent attacking player on the final day in a game we had to win to stay up, and predictably it finished 0-0. Rightly sacked.

Martin Allen- Bit of a cunt but he signed some players (Keith Andrews, Lloyd Dyer, Sean O'Hanlon) that we had no right to be signing in League 2. Would have pissed the league if he had a goalkeeper, and he identified the one we'd go on to piss the league with. Shame he left when he did. Top manager.

Paul Ince- I still think his assistant did all the hard work, and Allen built a team he couldn't fail with, but he won the double... so has to get some credit. Was never ready for Blackburn.

DiMatteo- Should have got us to the Championship, but bottled it after a crunch game with Leicester where they equalised about 27 minutes into injury time. Good manager though.

Paul Ince Again- Showed why I believe his assistant was to credit for our earlier success. Utterly inept and sacked for telling the fans to stay at home if they were going to boo him. Cunt. I need to check if he still has that car parking space outside Asda... I bet he does.

Paul Robinson- I've never got the hype. He got us up.... so... good for him, but it took him 4 years to do what DiMatteo had been a hair away from doing. He's a good young manager, but he's not the messiah he's made out to be. This season will be a big test for him... and so far he's failing it.

[Lewis]

TTH (and obligatory Paul Ince/Robert Mugabe mention) is the fifth Google result for 'paul ince asda space'. What a board.

[John]

I wonder what Paul Ince thinks when he Googles himself.

Sign up, Paul. We're great.

[Sam]

I've been going since 1996. Anything before that I will discount, obviously.

Mark McGhee - Era for the golden tit, relatively speaking, he was a gobshite, loudmouth and loved to goad the opposition. Was said that they never needed a team talk as McGhee had already wrote it for them with his ranting and raving. Glad we got rid.

Colin Lee - Era of almost, wasn't great at all to be frank. Nothing more to say as we continued to bumble around missing on going back to the top flight.

Dave Jones - Oversaw the most painful experience I've ever had as a Wolves fan in our infamous bottle season. Forfeiting the title, promotion to West Brom then getting thumped in the play-offs by Norwich. However, the following season was one of the finest hours that I've seen in the history of the club, beating Newcastle in the FA Cup prompted a run that took us from relegation candidates into the play-off winners over Sheffield United. His style of management was fun, we had one hell of a side with a great blend of youth (Matt Murray, Lescott, Kenny Miller) with experience (Paul Ince, Denis Irwin). Greatly respected down at Molineux still.

Glenn Hoddle - Prick smary faced absolute dog shit cunt fucking twat boring bastard. No more, left the club on it's arse, announced his leave just as England get knocked out in order to sweep it under the carpet, can't stand him.

Mick McCarthy - The most successful manager of my time as a Wolves fan. He come to the club when it was on it's knee and pulled together a squad on a shoestring that ended up the play-offs in his first season, albeit we lost to a Kevin Phillips inspired Albion it was great fun, from staring down to League One to putting together a run of form that confounded belief, all whilst taking players on loan from Conference clubs. Second season was hit-and-miss but the third it all clicked into gear as we picked up the first real silverware of my time, winning the Championship after leading from the 3rd week till the end. The football was thrilling, every game was pure fantastic attacking football that created such a buzz round Molineux that hadn't been present before. He took us to the Premiership and kept us there for two seasons with his dogged never-say-die brand of football which brought me joy that I'd never thought I'd experience, beating Liverpool at Anfield, Chelsea, City, United all falling at Molineux, beating Albion 3-1, the last day survival against Blackburn, only time I've seen people openly in tears, sends shivers down my spine. It all went wrong in the third premiership season, he looked clueless as his troops didn't respond anymore and high price flops and an inability to buy from anywhere that wasn't Ireland left the club in ruin, his reputation got tarnished with this, his inability to move the club forward has meant we ended up a rut that the club hasn't recovered from. He is held in some high regard still, he is my favourite manager still, those first few seasons were the best time to be a Wolves fan.

Terry Connor - Dear god, he can't count surely? What a rabbit in the headlights.

Stale Solbakken - First foreign import and what a disaster he was. Losing to Luton in the FA Cup as well as the squad being totally mismanaged, he was clueless, only plus was the signing of (sir) Bakary Sako.

Dean Saunders - Our chairmans golfing buddy. He was fucking clueless and a useless prick to boot. Relegation was confirmed the day he was named manager and took us back to League One. Hated.

Kenny Jackett - Current manager and follows the suit of Mick is many ways. The season in League One was brilliant, we were going all over the country and putting teams to the sword, don't underestimate how fun this is, regardless of the league, it's always great to win and win good. Got us a record points total playing some lovely football. Last season was pretty good with some notable performances however it became clear that we were a team being carried by a certain Bakary Sako, helping to hide some of his issues, namely his inability to react to tactical changing, baffling formations and inability to make a substitution when it is required. This has shown even more so this season as he ended up selling our best defender, captain and player of the year for mere pennies whilst managing to break the golden formula of our fluid attack, managing to turn Benik Afobe into a shadow of himself. He seems unable to be trusted with money as only one signing over the past two seasons is a feature in the first XI, the rest are on loan and other clubs, even at table topping Brighton, much to annoyance of the fans. He is also a perennial Mick-esque with his favoritism towards certain players. I want him sacked currently, but we are a club without any money and up for sale. The future looks grim in that aspect.

[niko_cee]

Dalglish I: don't really recall it that much, always disliked him for some reason through the 90s, my dad could never understand why (probably rightly).

Souness: has anyone ever done such an impressive hatchet job on a club? Implemented a type of over 30 and you're out policy whilst Arsene was but a glint in David Dein's eye. Basically sold most of the decent players and replaced them with bizarre Scandis named after chocolate bars. Had a heart attack and won an FA Cup though and is forever redeemed by his shenanigans as Galatasaray manager.

Evans: the last of the famed bootroom, we were pretty decent with The Good Roy in charge, but unfortunately were entirely unable to mark Gary Pallister or Ronnie Johnson at corners (seriously, did they have some sort of cloaking device?) which meant perennial defeat at the hand of the old enemy. Still, some era defining games (the Newcastle ones) and probably some of the best football until Suarez went mad nearly 2 decades later (fuck me). Fowler at his peak donning Arsenal (all the time) and Villa (from time to time) was about as much as I have ever enjoyed watching football. There was also a thing where, because you had to listen to games on the radio, Liverpool went through a period of what seemed to be years where every piece of update commentary would start with "Bjornebye . . ." and you had to quickly guess in your mind whether he'd rattled one in from 30 yards, or just dropped a horrible clanger and put the opposition centre forward through on goal. Unceremoniously deposed by . . .

The Joint-Manager experiment, Evans/Houllier: obviously not having the balls to just sack Roy some odd owl faced French creature was brought in in some kind of consultancy capacity, which lasted about 2 months until the inevitable happened. I seem to remember Houllier was alright for the most part, but just had a tragic weakness for shit French players (while Wenger was lolling away signing all the good ones). That funny treble thing was pretty good. Was never the same after the heart attack, but, in a show of what a different time it was - his last game was a crucial away win at Charlton wasn't it (to get them into the Champions League the following season)? This whole era of football was slightly marred for me by the chant "Champions League, you're having a laugh" - what has happened to that anyway?

Benitez: he was a bit of a coup when he joined, coming off the back to donning the dickhead teams in Spain for a few years running (perhaps on the back of Hector Cuper's awesome team). Immediately told Owen to fuck off (as the apocryphal story goes) which turned out to be quite a funny thing to have done. Brought in crazy ideas like trying to have a youth system (although he did flood it with foreign shit, I guess that was just the thinking at the time) and being tactically disciplined. That first season was completely mad, and has obviously given me some of the most enduring memories of football. When the team was functioning it was a proper machine. The problem was the machine too often faltered in the face of teams who came to defend. Signed some great players (Alonso, Torres) but also signed A LOT of shit. Then he went mental with the facht thing and was forever lost thereafter (well after they didn't win the league). I think that properly broke him, as he went from a good coach exploiting the prevailing style of the time, to some form of wandering loony picking up the scraps left by his great nemesis (who, lets not forget, he did get the better of when it really mattered). Still, pitched up at Old Trafford and battered seven bells out of them. But for Kiko fucking Macheda (I mean seriously?) would probably have won the league and still be in charge.

The other Roy: poor old Hodgson really was a calamitous appointment, at a calamitous time. The owners were losing control, there was no money to spend, but what there was went on some of the worst shite seen since Souness. Nothing good happened in his short stint. It was a torrid continuation of the downfall started under Hans Benitez.

Dalglish II (interim): came in, sold a broken Torres for £50m, bought Luis Suarez for £22m (the rest is better left forgotten), managed to get mooks like Raul Mereiles and (the admittedly less mookish) Maxi Rodriguez playing some inexplicably good stuff, romped away with the second half of that season proper graph style.

Dalglish III (got a long contract): went to shit (this literally ALWAYS happens - Benitez had just signed some stupidly long deal before it all went to tits and wait for it again in the future), plodded along for a season interspersed by moments of unfortunate madness, probably best forgotten. Won the league cup at some point.

Rodgers: came in and you could see a sort of improvement from the outset. Tried to get them playing Joe Allen tiki-taka (as was the style of the time) and whilst results were generally a bit rubbish you could see improvement. Brought through young players (force of circumstance) and generally everything was on an upward swing (3 year plan). Then Suarez went mental (again) which was a bit of a bugger, but, then he went mental again, in a different way, and turned poor Brenton's second season into the thing of almost dreams, dangerously ahead of schedule though. Just demolishing all and sundry it was crazy stuff. The old possession based gubbins had long since been abandoned in favour of blitzkreig like attacking football the likes of which probably hasn't been seen for many a year (maybe Keegan's Newcastle?). The games against Arsenal and Everton, in particular, were just mad, although just rolling 6 past teams away from home was also quite nice/different. Unfortunately, ended the same way as Saint Kev's travelling circus. Suarez went and did something mental again (really, ffs!) and then, even worse, left. Sturridge died, Brent started muttering inanely about 'character' more and more and was probably forever labouring under the (false?) impression that that season was anything to do with him. Signed a long contract, it all went to shit. Should have been bulleted in the summer but Jurgen wanted 'time out' (what a fanny), but it came in the end. Merciful release really.

Klopp: well, we'll see. Some classically Jekyll and Hyde stuff so far. I reckon he'll turn out to be quite good as the media are very unlikely to overwhelm him and he doesn't seem to be full of shit (in a bad way anyway).

[Ian]

There was a bit of Ron Atkinson as United manager in my lifetime but he was gone before I'd even seen my second Christmas.

Alex Ferguson - Speaks for itself, one of the best managers ever if not the best. A colossal arsehole of course but thanks to him I've probably already had it as good as I'll ever get it as a United fan.

David Moyes - Things didn't get off to a good start when between him and Woodward we had a farcical summer of making eyes across the dancefloor at girls who were threatening to press their rape alarm and deciding they just playing hard to get and then only managing to sign a couple of youth full-backs and Fellainimania. And you know, if he'd just played Fellaini as van Gaal (eventually) did the following season things might have gone better for him, instead of trying to use him as a defensive midfielder. I wasn't keen on the appointment when it was made and once that first summer went the way it did even the panic purchase of Juan Mata (who I like) wasn't going to save his bacon. I'd like to see him come back to the Premier League and do a job with another team similar to what he did with Everton.

Louis van Gaal - Things generally improved last season, I thought. He worked out that Fellaini has his uses if you put him in the right place, Herrera and Young got better as the season went along and he's overseen the vast improvement of Chris Smalling (though as I've ranted about before, that's partially been achieved just by playing him in his correct fucking position) but then this season he seems to be actively trying to piss all that away. I can live with crap football if the results are coming. I can even live, to an extent, with crap results (or at least not want to lay everything at the manager's door for them) if there are things being done to rectify them. Instead Young and Herrera have barely had a game after being good for us last year, Fellaini is getting played as an anchorman and then taken off at the point when we could use him in the box and Martial has been getting relegated frequently to the wing. Probably for so carelessly giving away posession by kicking the ball into the opponents' net. That and he/Woodward have still got an unbalancd squad after spunking all that money. Admittedly it's not unbalanced in the same ways it was a season or two ago but it's still ropey. I think I've had enough.

[John Arne]

I'll do Crewe.

Dario Gradi. Bit of legend. 6 trophies in his first spell, and somehow had us finish 11th in the Championship back in 1998. At the club as manager for 1,362 games and currently the Head of Youth development. Also brought through Chelsea Ass Man Steve Holland as a coach. 8/10

Dario Gradi / Steve Holland Duo shit. Crap 3/10

Dario Gradi II. Only 9 games. 6/10

Gudjon Thordarson. Crap. 2/10

Dario Gradi III. Quality. 7/10

Steve Davis. Doing what he can with no resources. 6/10

[Yevrah]

Martial has been getting relegated frequently to the wing. Probably for so carelessly giving away posession by kicking the ball into the opponents' net.

:D

dots

[Shindig]

Kevin Keegan With Sir John Hall's money he built the modern Newcastle and with it, the modern expectations. Didn't seem to care much about defence and our left backs never tracked back but he almost brought us to the title. Didn't crack any cups beyond a Quarter Final appearance in the League Cup but he took us to Europe and set us on our way to the Champions League. 8/10.

Kenny Dalglish His transfers might've looked alright five years prior and, as a result, Stuart Pearce seemed the only one still capable. And Dietmar Hamann. And Gary Speed. Oh, Shay as well. Tried to partner John Dahl Tomasson with a dead Ian Rush. Bit of a mess but, amidst this, we saw Wembley. 5/10.

Ruud Gullitt Another relegation flirt with a Wembley visit. Clearly didn't think much of Rob Lee and none of his signings spring to mind. He also pissed off Shearer which you can't really do in 1999. 5/10

Sir Bobby Robson Contends with Keegan as the best I've lived through. His transfers were hit and miss but we hit some actual league form, saw a couple of cup runs. Shame it ended the way it did with some of the dressing room losing faith in him. On the plus side, if he'd stayed on, cancer would've probably got him 5 years sooner. 8/10.

Graeme Souness Disciplinarian who arrived with Dean Saunders and broke everybody's hamstrings. Made some significant transfer failures with Boumsong and Luque and sent Bellamy packing. Made another UEFA Quarter Final. Brought a really bad atmosphere to the place and that stupid handshake. And had a string of bent agents. 4/10.

Glenn Roeder Proper firefighter. Took us into Europe and blooded a few youngsters out of absolute necessity. Peter Ramage, Paul Huntington and David Edgar all stepping up, to a point. It hampered league form and ultimately sealed his fate but I would've liked to have seen him given another year. 6/10.

Sam Allardyce Wrong job for the man. Had we struggled for years, expectations might've been more in line with his style but it never really worked. 3/10.

Kevin Keegan II I've never been happier with an appointment but the way that backroom was set up (Wise and the other two wankers handling transfers), it was set for disaster. Results weren't great and he managed less games than Allardyce but Ashley took all of the flack. 3/10.

Joe Kinnear 18 games. Sold Shay Given. The state of it. 2/10.

Alan Shearer Caretaker. As a player Alan had clout but as a manager he didn't make a jot of difference. Still waiting for the call, probably. 3/10.

Chris Hughton Excellent. Kept the squad together after the drop and, as a result, we steamrolled the Championship with an unbeaten home record and three strikers breaking 20 for the season. Pity life at the top table didn't go as smoothly but he wasn't doing badly. Happy to see he's kept this up. 7/10

Alan Pardew Initially I saw him as a sideways step but he did some good stuff with the dressing room and saw us into Europe. Form was unstable under him but we've dodged the drop and Cabaye seems to like him. Bit of a touchline headcase but fun. 7/10.

John Caver 20 games. Lots of stupid memories. Brought Jonas back in, showed off Coloccini's open letter, showed off his ties, 'He's done that on purpose', kept us up and then gatecrashed an interview. Daft. Don't ever manage again. 4/10.

Steve McClaren So far, so fine. We're at the wrong end of the table but he's showing a willingness to address things. Its a very weird season, though. 6/10.

[Davgooner]

Excluding caretakers, it's Graham, Rioch and Wenger. :|

First games were watching Graham's Arsenal with my dad and brother, and winning both cups in 1993 and Smith's winner against Parma in '94. Rioch did a tidy job and one of the my favourite memories at Highbury was the last day of the 95/96 season needing to beat Bolton to secure a UEFA Cup spot, and doing so with a last minute winner. I remember him signing Platt and Bergkamp which was a bit of a mindfuck as well. I was eleven when Wenger took over, and remember no-one knowing who the fuck he was. He went and won the league in his first full season has donned it ever since. He's been here so long that I think a lot of fans have no appreciation of what went before him, or even what it was like between 1998-2005. I feel genuinely very fortunate to have been able to follow the side during that period as a young lad.

[GS]

Evans - I remember some mental games, Fowler and his 'nose bandage' and McManaman running riot, but that's about it. 6

Houllier - He did quite well, but there was a clear over-reliance on Owen and his signings were questionable. 6

Benitez - He won the European Cup, for fuck sake. Reached another final, and was a Riise own goal away from another one. Put together the first genuine title challenge of the new millennium. He signed some questionable talent, but then he made some great signings like Reina, Mascherano, Alonso and Torres. Made Gerrard a much, much better player. I think the ownership debacle ultimately got the better of him, in the sense that he spent so long trying to hold his finger in the dam that it probably broke him. Still, we were close to administration in the few months after he left and I think there's a massive under-appreciation for how much he effectively held the club together as the ownership attempted to leech off us. Ultimately he won the European Cup and made his competitive in the upper echelon of Europe for a sustained period for the first time since the mid-eighties. A bit of a golden era, all things considered. 9

Hodgson - I've never hated a manager more. 1

Dalglish (interim) - came in with a squad in CRISIS and did very well. Put together a great run of form, signed Suarez (and Carroll) and sold a broken Torres for £50m. The likes of Maxi and Meireles started playing well, and we were clearly ON THE UP. Based on what he did in his interim spell, you couldn't have not given him the job full-time. 7

Dalglish (full time) - we started well, but the wheels came off and he didn't show any signs of being able to turn it around. Reached two cup finals. I was of the view that we shouldn't sack him if the best we could get to replace him was Brendan Rodgers, but in hindsight he probably needed to go when he did. 3 for the league, 7 for the cups - average 5

Rodgers - where to start. I always thought he was a chancer, but there appeared to be moments of lucid brilliance in the 13/14 season. In reality, I think it all boiled down to Suarez going absolutely mental and Rodgers having the good sense to just run with it. Ultimately he had three and a quarter seasons, and the only times we played genuinely well for a sustained period were when Suarez was on the pitch. That's not a coincidence. We got some genuine hidings on the road and he appeared incapable of setting a team up to defend well for a more than four games at a time. Still, he deserves a lot of credit for 13/14 - just not as much as he might think he does himself. 6

Klopp - an exciting appointment. He's started well away from home, with home form still looking suspect. We'll see. -

[Spammer]

I'm starting from what I remember. Anything before this is a blur of remembered only from books

Neil Warnock - Was for a long time in the end. Turned up and made the players give a shit about the team again, which was refreshing and is what would ultimately define his time as manager. Made a lot of dodgy as fuck signings and is now known for taking us to the Premiership although it took him 6 years, but he still brought us my proudest moment following THE MIGHTY BLADES (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZDsjY3uFdE) and a few semi-finals thrown in there too. That video I linked to is just a thing of beauty - the tone of the narrator, Megson and Warnock just sum the whole thing up perfectly.

The Premiership I think was ultimately too high for Warnock - he's better as a wheeler dealer signing players from places like Bury and getting them working their socks off. With millions of pounds to throw around he didn't really know what to do. He also had a tendency to blame literally anyone in the world instead of taking responsibility for any mistakes he might have made, which I found quite funny when he was with us but I saw them in proper context when he was elsewhere. All in all he was a cantankerous old git and always will be, but he was manager during the years I had a season ticket and I'll have a lot of decent memories of his time. Walked out once we got relegated from the Premiership.

Bryan Robson - Oh do fuck off. Honestly. Spent about 10 million pounds and didn't get anyone playing, basically. Thought he was a shit appointment when we got him and was right on that front. Knew we'd be in trouble when he personally blamed players in post-match press conferences. Knew he was absolutely fucked when he told the press that he'd 'lost patience in the players', as though he had nothing to do with it. Sacked within 1 season when we were about 18th in the table with the most expensive squad in the Championship.

Kevin Blackwell - Turned things around somewhat and we only just missed the playoffs in the season he took over. He took over in Feb after Robson had been sacked, and did well all things considered. The season after and we finished third, only missing out on second on the final day, and lost a dull game to Burnley in the playoff final. the season after and I think we were mid-table again, just missed out on the playoffs, although by this time the Championship income was really kicking in as the parachute payments were winding down and we still had a fucking horrendous wage bill. Lots of players had gone, not much to be excited about had come in and, although I never thought it would happen, some were worried about us being relegated. Nobody will know how Blackwell might have fared this season as, somewhat bizarelly, he was sacked after two games....specifically after losing to QPR, who would go on to smash the whole league.

Gary Speed - People always make out as though Speed was in the midst of turning things around with us before he left for the Wales job. I often feel as though people say this to be nice about him, because I don't really think we improved at all and by the way he talked it seemed to me that he didn't have a clue. Maybe it was the depression, I don't know.

Micky Adams - I always rated Micky before he came and was happy with the appointment. I don't know if it was Micky's fault or if maybe we were already a quickly sinking ship, but we seemed to get a lot worse with him around. Relegated from the Championship before the end of the season. Nice bloke though.

Danny Wilson - Took over for the first League One amidst some controversy as he used to be at Wednesday. Did well though; got everyone playing very nicely and we mostly smashed the league - becoming only the second team to achieve 90 points and not get promoted. Was a great season actually, with us and Wednesday battling it out for the second automatic promotion spot (Charlton were miles ahead of both of us). We were on course to sail straight up at the first time of asking, but Evans getting sent down completely fucked us over. We failed to win any of our final 3 games, Wednesday beat us to second place, we played dire in the semis of the playoffs but managed to get through to the final where we failed to even look like scoring in 120 minutes and then got fucked over on penalties. The next season we were looking decent and were top at Christmas, although by April we were 4th (although still with a chance of automatic). It was at this point for some reason that the board decided to sack Wilson without anyone ready to replace him.

Chris Morgan - He got the players working hard but clearly had no idea what he was doing. In charge from April until the end of the season, which was in the playoff semi final when we lost to Yeovil, ffs.

David Weir - Won his first game in charge and then proceeded to get us into the League One relegation zone. Sacked two months into the season. Will be remembered for this classic (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24204555) as his final interview.

Nigel Clough - Took us from the relegation zone in October to a 7th place finish, via an FA Cup semi final and a 12 match winning streak. Can't help but feel that, as awesome as this was, it only served to heighten expectations for the following season, in which we finished 5th and got booted out of the playoffs, after which Clough got sacked. I thought it was harsh after the previous season, and even though some of his signing were a bit bit baffling I think he had a shout to refer to the injury list in explaining why our defence was such a shambles against Swindon. That said, we did sell Harry Maguire the previous July and he was never properly replaced. He made mistakes but I wanted another season for him.

Nigel Adkins - Known as +ve Nigel, especially in relation to Clough, Adkins was one of the managerial signings that I think everyone felt good about. Had taken Scunthorpe out of the third tier and Southampton from the third tier to the Premiership. Started out well, with I think 5 wins from his first 6 matches, we've had a run of shit results and are about mid-table. What's more, there are complaints amongst fans about the team not putting a proper shift in, which is something I hadn't really heard much in the past. Brought in some players he knew although didn't seem bothered about signing a proper centre back which is what we'd been missing for a whole year. Said that he'd give the current players time to prove themselves, which was decent of him but ultimately embarrassed when we got drummed 4-0 by Gillingham in the first game of the season, which prompted him to decide that he'd given the current the players enough time and that he needed to bring someone in. Has done, but the defence hasn't looked any better until recently. In the last two games however he seems to have decided that, in fact, we probably aren't good enough to pass our way of the league and it'd be best to muscle our way out instead. Coventry last week we were fucking horrible to watch but managed to shit ourselves to victory, and I'm told it was the same yesterday. I'd like us to play nice football but I'd rather see us get the results, so this'll do me.