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**AMMS** · 30-12-2015, 13:06

Decline Of The English Manager

An English manager will almost certainly win the Scottish Championship title this season, although Falkirk could prevent that to be fair.

I've a mate who claims the lack of success for English managers is in proportion to the increase in non-English (UK and ROI) players in the top league. The insular nature of many English players careers meaning they struggle to manage non-UK/ROI players later in life.

Clearly Alex Ferguson learned how to deal with continentals whilst playing at Ayr and managing East Stirlingshire.

**Bored Of Education** · 30-12-2015, 13:56

Decline Of The English Manager

One thing that occurs which, unfortunately, isn't covered by your brilliant statistics is whether the non-UK/ROI managers over this time have come from already being successful in foreign league and it is just easier to do better in the EPL with that experience but also with the money available to English clubs.

I think that we can take Wenger out of the theory as one French league win with an, I assume, well moneyed Monaco doesn't prepare him for a not particularly rich Arsenal at the time. His is a different story very particular to him and , possibly, Arsenal at the time. Equally, I think that Hodgson can be taken out of any theories as he is, aside from his nationality and latter teams, pretty much in the foreign model.

What of foreign managers that have come up through the EPL? I am sure I am missing someone obvious but there are a lot of Zola, Di Canio, Martinez cases and not a lot of foreign managers either that start in the EPL and do well.

It can't be, obviously, that any foreign league is harder to manage in than the EPL otherwise Christian Gross would have been a shoe-in. However, I wonder how many of the foreign coaches came through the better European leagues in Italy, Spain, Germany, Portugal and, specifically, the larger clubs in those leagues that have probably had well-established paths through progressive coaching set-ups.

**Snake Plissken** · 30-12-2015, 14:48

Decline Of The English Manager

Probably for the same reason the players aren't - the money is better.

(Also, putting my cynical hat on, I would assume the old boys club of managers who repeatedly fail at club after club is harder to break into if you've disappeared abroad for a couple of years.)

**dalliance** · 30-12-2015, 15:02

Decline Of The English Manager

Wenger really would have won more French titles had he not been competing against a club in OM that was spending like PSG does today, while cheating on the side just to make sure their advantage was sledgehammered home.

**Cesar Rodriguez** · 30-12-2015, 17:45

Decline Of The English Manager

Can't be bothered reading the OP or thread but managers are basically superfluous in today's game. Money is more important.

The most successful teams chop and change managers like people change their socks.

**Bored Of Education** · 30-12-2015, 18:13

Decline Of The English Manager

Who are you answering, CV?

**scratchmonkey** · 30-12-2015, 19:55

Decline Of The English Manager

Quick nationality stats for some of the major European leagues:

Premier League
English Coaches: 20%
British + RoI Coaches: 35%

Bundesliga
German Coaches: 60%
Germanish Coaches: 77%

Serie A
Italian Coaches: 85%

La Liga
Spanish Coaches: 80%
Spanish Speakers: 90%

Ligue 1
French Coaches: 85%
Francophone: 90%

ETA: Germanish = German + Austrian + Swiss, my reasoning being that the relationship between those countries is a decent enough analogue for the British + RoI grouping.

Further Edit, Bonus, Nationality in the EPL for the first season:
English: 70%
British + RoI: 100%

**Rogin the Armchair fan** · 30-12-2015, 20:00

Decline Of The English Manager

Don't know if there are any, but you'd have to add Francophone and Spanish speaking (Argentines etc) coaches back into the stats for those leagues, too. then. It's the language barrier that defines things, no?

**Borracho** · 30-12-2015, 20:03

Decline Of The English Manager

Carnivorous Vulgaris wrote: Dunno, I just feel like someone's walked on my grave. Brrrrrr...

Cesar Rodriguez was telling us a while back that Romelu Lukaku "will never amount to anything". I don't think his grasp of the game is the best.

**scratchmonkey** · 30-12-2015, 20:04

Decline Of The English Manager

IIRC, I think the changes would be minimal, specifically for Spain, where 2 of the non-Spanish coaches are Argentine and one coach in France who was born in the USSR and played for Armenia; yet is clearly a Franchophone. I'll go back and edit those in.

ETA: And really, then you'd have to make the argument that Miihajlovic should probably count as an "Italianesque" manager as I presume that there's no way that he's not fluent. It's a cultural thing as well of course aside from the linguistic element.

**dalliance** · 30-12-2015, 23:25

Decline Of The English Manager

I'm not a fan of people who make a point of sharing an opinion on a thread they are at pains to tell us they can't be arsed to read.

Lukaku is doing well enough just now but he's no elite level striker yet. He needs too many chances to score goals.

**Satchmo Distel** · 31-12-2015, 01:58

Decline Of The English Manager

1) Many great English managers brought a club up from a lower division (Clough, Ramsey, Revie) rather than being appointed to a side that was already in the top flight. They weren't "big money transfers" from other successful clubs. Today it's just about impossible for a promoted club to win the Prem.

2) A present-day equivalent of Brian Clough, who retired early due to injury, would not slog his way up from Hartlepool to Derby when he probably had millions in the bank from wages, insurance payments etc. He would put his money into something else.

3) Achievements with mid-level clubs appear not to be taken as seriously as in past eras by those who appoint top flight managers. You can have a CV full of successes in the 2nd and 3rd tiers and they won't mean shit compared to finishing 4th in La Liga or Serie A.

4) English managers don't have the advantage of sharing the same culture as their players. Clough could go drinking with his squad, Revie might play dominoes with his lads; where's the equivalent cultural bond between Big Sam and his lads?

**Borracho** · 31-12-2015, 10:06

Decline Of The English Manager

dalliance wrote: Lukaku is doing well enough just now but he's no elite level striker yet. He needs too many chances to score goals.

Not to derail this thread into a discussion of Lukaku, but just to note in passing, 71 goals in 142 games over the last three and a half seasons is pretty good going. Especially for a 22-year-old who's been playing for mid-table teams.

**The Awesome Berbaslug!!!** · 31-12-2015, 14:55

Decline Of The English Manager

What standard are you judging him by dalliance. Didier Drogba managed a fairly steady average of four goals every nine games. That's not exactly clinical, yet I think we're all pretty much agreed that Didier Drogba was very good at being a line leading target man. I think the only thing standing between lukaku and being considered an elite forward is the club he plays for.

I think perhaps the most important thing to consider here is that as an employment market, football on these islands has been perfectly integrated for nearly a hundred years. To the point that english clubs were able to dominate Europe, in large part because Irish, scottish and welsh players didn't count as foreigners.

So unlike in countries like say Italy or spain, clubs never thought they were appointing a foreigner, when they appointed a scottish manager. And the Archetypal "Scottish Chieftain" character fits the requirements of a football manager like a glove, so they became quite popular.

Now The premier league is the global league, watched everywhere, owned by all sorts, and importing whatever it can from outside in an effort to gain a marginal advantage. Clubs don't care about the nationality of their manager any more than the nationality of their centre forward. English managers aren't only competing with Scottish, welsh and Irish people for jobs. They're also competing with managers who have won the champions league, or leagues in other countries.

**Bored Of Education** · 31-12-2015, 17:48

Decline Of The English Manager

Actually, that's a good point, TAB. Is there any real reason to be bothered about the paucity of good English or, indeed, British jobs when it only really impacts on the national jobs once every four years or so and, even then, those jobs are no longer parochial.

Well, I say that about the rarefied heights that you watch football at, down where we are it is quite important as we aren't able to have foreign coaches.

**Southport Zeb** · 31-12-2015, 18:05

Decline Of The English Manager

Bored of Education wrote:
Well, I say that about the rarefied heights that you watch football at, down where we are it is quite important as we aren't able to have foreign coaches.

Southport have turned their season around since appointing a Tunisian manager.

**Bored Of Education** · 19-01-2016, 11:37

Decline Of The English Manager

Pity about the club but this is an interesting interview with a young coach who has totally bypassed the traditional way of progressing in the role.

**tracteurgarcon** · 19-01-2016, 19:10

Decline Of The English Manager

No manager has ever won the Premier League title without first winning a league title with another team in another country, apart from Dalglish who'd previously won the league with Liverpool pre-Prem.

This probably means that no club with title ambitions is going to risk getting in a home-grown manager as they, invariably, won't have a proven winning track record.

**Rogin the Armchair fan** · 19-01-2016, 19:23

Decline Of The English Manager

Well, as we say ad nauseum, "Premier League" managerial records are skewed somewhat inasmuch as you're looking at a sample of five clubs, there, two of whom won 16 of the 23 titles so far between them with just two managers. Only Dalglish, Mourinho (3), Ancelotti, Mancini and Pellegrini need to be included in the list, and the latter five are managing clubs for whom bringing in a manager who's won the biggest trophies in the world is not so much a calculated footballing decision as a "fuck off look at us now" statement.

Berbaslug will fall out of his seat in his urgency to respond to what I'm about to say, but Brendan WAS only one result away from taking Liverpool to the title, you know. A win at Hull that year, say. Although Liverpool had no realistic title ambitions that season, it just all sort of fell onto them, so the later point you make probably remains true about his appointment. Klopp was definitely signed with that ambition in mind. Man United wouldn't have appointed Moyes on the basis that they had no title ambitions, through. Of course they did. They have title ambitions every year, and rightly so.

**tracteurgarcon** · 20-01-2016, 15:38

Decline Of The English Manager

Rogin the Armchair Fan wrote: Well, as we say ad nauseum, "Premier League" managerial records are skewed somewhat inasmuch as you're looking at a sample of five clubs, there, two of whom won 16 of the 23 titles so far between them with just two managers. Only Dalglish, Mourinho (3), Ancelotti, Mancini and Pellegrini need to be included in the list, and the latter five are managing clubs for whom bringing in a manager who's won the biggest trophies in the world is not so much a calculated footballing decision as a "fuck off look at us now" statement.

Berbaslug will fall out of his seat in his urgency to respond to what I'm about to say, but Brendan WAS only one result away from taking Liverpool to the title, you know. A win at Hull that year, say. Although Liverpool had no realistic title ambitions that season, it just all sort of fell onto them, so the later point you make probably remains true about his appointment. Klopp was definitely signed with that ambition in mind. Man United wouldn't have appointed Moyes on the basis that they had no title ambitions, through. Of course they did. They have title ambitions every year, and rightly so.

Yes, but that's part of the problem, winning the title for the superclubs is all about tiny margins and having a manager who has already won a title, generally in a major European league, might make all the difference. It's certainly worth investing a relatively small amount, certainly compared to the cost of players, in a "proven" manager rather than take a chance on a British manager who will, generally, not even have the experience of going close to winning a trophy, let alone a league title.

**dalliance** · 20-01-2016, 15:44

Decline Of The English Manager

Especially as the Premier League overpays managers vastly compared to the rest of Europe. The wealthy English clubs can't attract the very best players in the world, but they have their pick of pretty much the whole pool of management talent out there.

It would be amiss not to use that to its full advantage.

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