The top 10 managers of the Premier League era – ranked

The Premier League has welcomed some of the greatest football managers to walk the planet, but there is often debate as to who tops the list as the best of them all.

FootballFanCast has ranked the top 10 Premier League managers of all time. This list is based on a manager’s impact at the club, longevity, the trophies they won and their win percentage.

10

Carlo Ancelotti

Chelsea, Everton

You may not have realised, but aside from his dominant spells in Europe, Carlo Ancelotti had a successful time in the Premier League after leaving Italy for the first time as a manager.

Ancelotti was appointed manager of Chelsea in 2009 and won the Premier League and FA Cup in his first season.

It was Chelsea’s first-ever domestic double, in a season when Ancelotti’s side also set a record by scoring 103 league goals – a feat only surpassed by Manchester City’s 106 in 2017/18.

His short but very sweet tenure in south-west London left a lasting impact at the club and contributed to Chelsea’s sustained competitiveness in the years following his departure in 2011.

Ancelotti won just over 54% of his Premier League games as boss, which was largely dampened by his time at Everton between 2019 and 2021. Away from English shores, he has lifted the most Champions League trophies out of any manager and became the first to win all of Europe’s top five leagues after his first La Liga triumph with Real Madrid in 2022.

9

Claudio Ranieri

Chelsea, Leicester, Fulham, Watford

Marcus Rashford is 1000/1 to win the 2024 Ballon d’Or. That means if you bet £1 on the Manchester United winger to win it, you could win a cool grand – but how realistic is it that Rashford will actually do that? Impossible, right?

The same word would have been used ahead of the 2015/16 season when Leicester City were handed the impossible odds of 5000/1 to lift the Premier League. Of course, this was completely justified, as the Foxes had narrowly avoided relegation the previous season.

Then Claudio Ranieri comes into the picture; a tactical genius who had managed across the globe before his time in Leicester, including a four-year stint at Chelsea from 2000 to 2004.

It was always ‘impossible’ for Leicester to win the league – until they actually did it. This was an achievement so great that it directly rivals Arsene Wenger’s Invincibles side as one of the greatest teams the league has ever seen.

During his first season at Leicester, Ranieri displayed such a unique tactical approach that challenged the dominance of the traditional ‘big six’, bringing the likes of Jamie Vardy and N’Golo Kante to life, that he very well deserves a place in this list.

8

Sir Kenny Dalglish

Blackburn, Newcastle, Liverpool

Ranieri’s level of uniqueness applies to Sir Kenny Dalglish, too. He lifted the 1994/95 Premier League with Blackburn Rovers in his final season managing the club.

After 14 successful years as a player and manager at Liverpool, Dalglish had already cemented his top-flight English football legacy before he joined Blackburn.

It’s not like he needed to prove himself at Rovers, having already won the First Division three times with the Reds. But that’s exactly what he did when his Blackburn side finished one point ahead of Man United – despite an ironic 2-1 defeat at Anfield on the final day of the season – to win Blackburn the league for the first time since 1914.

With a spell at Newcastle United and another run at his beloved Liverpool in 2012, Dalglish went on to win 115 of his 238 Premier League games as a manager.

7

Roberto Mancini

Manchester City

Roberto Mancini won Manchester City’s first-ever Premier League title to mark the start of a relentless, dominant period for the Citizens in English top-flight football.

He won over 61% of his Premier League matches at City – a very high number that comes close to some of the greats who feature later on in this list.

Mancini also took charge of arguably the greatest-ever Premier League moment, when Sergio Aguero’s 94th-minute goal secured his side the title against QPR.

6

Antonio Conte

Chelsea, Tottenham

Antonio Conte made an instant impact when he arrived at Chelsea ahead of the 2016/17 campaign.

Not only did Conte guide his side to the Premier League title in his first attempt, but the former Italy midfielder also reached the FA Cup final in the same season, before being beaten by Arsenal at Wembley.

Conte had just two seasons at Chelsea before heading back to his homeland to take charge of Inter, where he won his fourth Scudetto in Serie A. He then returned for two largely unsuccessful seasons as Tottenham Hotspur manager in 2021. Although, he did become one of only three Spurs managers to lead the side to a top-four finish in the Premier League era.

Conte had a very respectable win rate of 63% during his time in the English top-flight, but it’s hard to place him in the top five Premier League managers having only taken charge of 132 games. However, Chelsea’s stunning performance in 2016/17 and the records they broke along the way should never go unnoticed.

5

Jurgen Klopp

Liverpool

Jurgen Klopp left Liverpool knowing he was the man who brought Premier League success to the club for the first time in its history.

Not only did he capture the hearts of almost every fan at the Merseyside club, but he restored faith in a city that no longer believed their football club would reach the heights it once did.

The German won almost 63% of his 334 Premier League games during the nine years he managed Liverpool – a remarkable achievement considering the squad he inherited.

Klopp won the Premier League at Liverpool, but he only delivered it once, albeit with intense competition during his tenure. His time at Anfield included European success and lifting almost every trophy he possibly could. However, given this list is based on success in the English top flight, it seems reasonable to place Klopp as the fifth-best Premier League manager of all time just short of the man next up…

4

Jose Mourinho

Chelsea, Man Utd, Tottenham

Even without all of his success at Chelsea, Jose Mourinho is viewed as a Premier League legend for his impact off the pitch as well as on it.

The reason we have deemed Mourinho as the fourth-greatest Premier League manager of all time is due to the fact that he did it, came back, and did it again.

In his debut season at Chelsea, Mourinho brought the league title back to Stamford Bridge for the first time in 50 years, totalling a then-record of 95 points. The following season, he won it again, and during his second spell at the west London club nine years later, he was able to replicate his domestic success impeccably.

The Portuguese also won the Premier League’s Manager of the Season award three times, stamping his name in the history books forever.

Although his win percentage sits at just below 60% in the 363 Premier League games he managed, Mourinho’s impact on the Premier League as a whole, plus his three league titles, makes him one of the best ever.

3

Arsene Wenger

Arsenal

Arsene Wenger is the only Premier League manager to go an entire season without losing a single game, so it wouldn’t be far-fetched to argue that the Frenchman deserves a higher spot in this list based on that feat alone.

What the Invincibles achieved in 2003/04 with Wenger at the helm is arguably the greatest achievement in not just English football, but the wider sporting world.

Wenger was at the forefront of Arsenal’s supremacy during the late 1990s and early 2000s. The iconic undefeated season with the Gunners also marked his third Premier League title since joining the club in 1996, but it was also his last.

This fact, paired with the very sour ending that Wenger had to endure right up towards the end of his eventual retirement in 2018, places him in third among the Premier League greats.

After a 22-year spell with Arsenal, Wenger cemented his name in the Premier League record books, having taken charge of the most games out of any other manager, with 476 wins in 828 matches.

2

Pep Guardiola

Man City

Pep Guardiola may have won trophies galore and recently led Manchester City to an unprecedented four straight league titles, but he just falls short in terms of this list.

His win percentage of 74% – the best on this list – is a mark of the dominance his City sides have endured in such a short period of time, though that only makes him the second-greatest manager since the Premier League’s inception.

The Spaniard, brought European glory to City; Guardiola’s Champions League success was the first of its kind for the Citizens as the club would claim an iconic treble following their victory over Inter in June 2023.

The elephant in the room is, of course, City’s 115 charges that loom over the heads of everyone involved at the club like an eerie, grey, stormy cloud. City also have the second-highest net spend only to Chelsea in the Premier League era, which has brought debate over whether the Abu Dhabi state-owned club have essentially bought their success.

However, Guardiola’s achievements cannot be underestimated in terms of putting a side together that will simply win a lot of games on a consistent basis throughout a long, hard, slogging season.

He has lifted the Premier League six times since his arrival in Manchester and he’s only been at the club for eight years. So you could argue that if he were to rival the longevity of the managerial stalwarts of years gone by, he may experience even further success.

Guardiola has won 225 of his 304 matches while only experiencing defeat 38 times, which is also an achievement in itself.

1

Sir Alex Ferguson

Man Utd

Ultimately, it is very hard to list a manager greater than Sir Alex Ferguson in the Premier League era.

Not only did he win 13 Premier Leagues at Manchester United over a 20-year period, but he changed how the club would be viewed for the foreseeable future.

After the dominance of United’s bitter rivals Liverpool in the late 1970s and 80s, Ferguson shifted the Manchester club’s standing to be seen as one of world football’s most formidable forces.

Ferguson won 27 Manager of the Month awards, too – the most in the league’s history. His first came in August 1993 and last in October 2012, which proves his lengthy presence as a winning manager.

With 528 wins in 810 Premier League matches, the Scotsman retired with a more than respectable win percentage of just over 65%.

Throughout his trophy-laden spell at the helm of United, Ferguson’s sides would score a whopping 1,627 goals while conceding a mere 703 in the Premier League. He was the leader of multiple historic, trophy-winning sides that will be remembered in the English top flight forever.