Wally with a Brolly

It's a sad reality of football that managers are the only people who really face criticism. Sure, players get some stick, but they'll always be able to find another club. And they're always the reason why a manager gets the sack, whether it's down to their performance or to their attitude.

Take Rafa Benitez's time at Chelsea. Sure, that was a stupid choice in the first place. Rafa is pompous, arrogant and believes in his own hype. But he's also proven in the past to be an efficient if unspectacular manager, and he's got a certain pedigree of success, even if it dates back to (in football) ancient times.



But, similar to Luiz Felipe Scolari or AVB before him, he's been victim of certain players' attitude. I'm of course talking about John Terry, but I feel safe in guessing he's not the only player behaving in a certain way. And when Benitez will be let go, JT and co will simply go back to their job, waiting for another puppet manager so they can resume their reign. Benitez, on the other hand, despite all his efforts, will look for another job.

Let's be clear, I'm not crying for Benitez. He'll find a job anyway and he's deeply unlikeable. And it's not only at Chelsea that these going-ons happen. I can think of other teams where players have clearly under-performed or behaved atrociously, but there are too many instances of such things happening to be able to name them all. Why do you think players' form tends to pick up after a change of manager?

But the beauty of football, and of the Premier League in particular, is that there are rare occasions when it is so clear that the manager is incompetent that he's a dead man walking, no matter how hard his players play for him. We are here to pay tribute to these managers.

1. Steve Kean

Undoubtedly the worst of the lot. And he doesn't deserve any pity or mercy. Steve Kean was a nobody until he arrived at Blackburn, and it should have stayed that way. A long-time unknown member of various backroom staffs, the Scot was given added responsibilities by an impressed Sam Allardyce. So far, so good. But then Allardyce was sacked by chicken farmers Venky's, and Steve Kean took over. Even the manner of his appointment was strange, with Big Sam obviously alluding to some back stabbing from the new Blackburn manager.

His arrival wasn't the most celebrated but Blackburn fans were willing to give him a chance to start with. Those were the days when Venky's were supposedly approaching Ronaldinho and other big name players, so it was easy for Blackburn fans to look the other way and not really care who was in charge. Or so they thought.

What happened next was a farce of epic proportions. From chicken throwing to plane-banner-passing (is there even a term for that?), Kean proved to be so incompetent that Blackburn fans devised incredibly innovative way of making their feelings known. Seriously. It was impressive stuff.

That chicken loved the club more than Steve Kean ever did.

Kean was so out of depth it was unbelievable. He bought horrendous players, never knew which tactics to play, often seemed to either gamble or leave it all to chance. He single-handedly took a club down. Now that's quite an achievement.

I think what annoyed fans and pundits alike as well was the fact Kean was so delusional and optimistic all the freaking time. That and being Venky's puppet. It was embarrassing. And don't give me the bull-crap about him showing dignity when faced with so much abuse. If he'd had any dignity, he would have resigned, simply to save the club. Instead, he made sure we wouldn't see Blackburn in the Premier League for years. It's not that I particularly miss them, but it's still a sad state of affairs.

"Get that chicken out of my way. I've got work to do: Grant Hanley is my centre-back."

2. Iain Dowie

From being named the Premier League's ugliest player of all time to making it to number 2 on our list, it's clear things haven't been going too smoothly for Iain Dowie. I'll give him credit where it's due and say he did OK at Palace by getting them promoted (no mean feat) and only just narrowly failing to beat the drop. What annoyed me more at the time was the press coverage of his tenure as Dowie being such an innovative manager. It used to go along the lines of "ooooh he brought a physio with him and his team does work in the swimming pool. How clever!" Forget the fact that the physio was his brother and that he was revolutionising squat, and we had another example of a youngish, average English manager being touted for future stardom. Give me a break.

We've since then had a great glimpse of Dowie's ability. For spending about £15m at Charlton (more than was ever given to Curbs) and getting sacked after 15 games whilst sending an established Premier League club down the leagues (from where they haven't come back yet), Dowie deserves a serious telling-off. Especially when Charlton were Fulham's predecessors as everyone's second favourite club.

This could all have been a simple bump in the road. But it wasn't. Dowie showed his mettle by agreeing to being Shearer's assistant at Newcastle. Fyi, that's worse than Nick Clegg becoming Cameron's b***h (I'm getting political here): you look hopeless and clueless. Which is pretty much what he did.
Finally, Dowie finished his Premier League roundabout by becoming Hull's 'Football Consultant' after Phil Brown was sent on 'gardening leave'. If ever there was more of a shambles than that I will never know. Needless to say Hull went down.

"What do you mean Steven Mouyokolo is not a striker?"

3. Alain Perrin

Alain Perrin has quite a big reputation in France. I know, shocker. But, when he joined Pompey, he'd had a decent track record, helping Troyes (traditional yo-yo club) reach Europe, and doing well at a difficult OM. Of course he'd also gone to the Middle East, so we didn't really know what he was worth anymore.

And then we found out. We found a manager so unadapted for this league it was untrue. Perrin was a disciplinarian, more interested in tactical discipline than flair or creativity. Which should have worked well for Pompey considering they were always fighting relegation. Except it didn't. And Perrin didn't even seem to care one little bit. An absolute enigma.

"I am bemused. Why do my players not defend or score?"

4. Avram Grant

Only number 4, you might ask? I know, right? Avram Grant is a leech. We don't know where he's come from, where he's going, but we do know he sucks the life and enthusiasm out of a football club. Any football club, big or small.

He first popped onto our radar at Pompey, in a supposed power struggle with 'Arry. by the way, there's always a power struggle at some point with 'Arry. And then he disappeared for a while. Just like that. We had no clue. What was he up to? What was he meant to be doing? Who knows?

And then he popped up at Chelsea, as a 'personal friend' of Abramovich. Talk about getting there on merits. When Mourinho left, he took over. Somehow. And yet we still didn't notice him. That's because he has the charisma of.... I don't even know. Who has awful charisma? Ed Miliband?

Anyway, Avram simply coasted at Chelsea, having to hire Henk ten Cate as his assistant because he didn't and never had the requried UEFA badges. No surprise there really; Somehow he came within a post of winning the Champions' Leaue. Knowing Chelsea, JT and Avram as I do, and despite severely disliking Man Utd and Fergie, we came close to something awful. Very close indeed.

His inspirational stint at Chelsea over, Avram contributed to the beautiful falls from grace at both Pompey and West Ham, making his teams play an uninspiring and dull style of football whilst continuing to show absolutely no emotions whatsoever, simply taking the cheque and going home at the end of the day.

For the way he got those jobs and his performance, he deserves to be in the top 5. And now that I'm typing this, he should have probably made the top 3. But it's so tight up there.

"Avram happy. Avram sad."

5. Alex McLeish

What is there to say about Alex McLeish? Devoid of ideas but granted a surprisingly big reputation, the red-faced (because he's so angry) ex-Rangers managers had gained a lot of credit, somehow, for winning titles with Rangers. Memo to everyone: it's incredibly simple to win a title or cup in Scotland when you're managing Rangers or Celtic. OK, maybe not now for Rangers, but during his time it was soooo easy. To be fair to him, McLeish had done well managing Scotland, coming close to qualifying for a major tournament. That's the only concession I'll give him.

Apart from that? McLeish managed to get Birmingham relegated, then promoted, then relegated again after 2 seasons. Sure they won the Carling Cup, thanks to an Arsenal shocker (thanks Wojcech!). But they also played the most uninspiring football EVER seen on these shores. It was absolutely dreadful. And you knew it was never going to get any better with Nikola Zigic in the team. God that was just awful to watch.

So what did Alex do when he got his club relegated? He simply jumped out of the burning ship (great loyalty) and proceeded to do EXACTLY the same thing at Villa, also known as Birmingham's deadly rivals. Idiot.

The worst thing with Alex McLeish wasn't that he got an overblown reputation to start with, nor that he got away with helping to destroy Birmingham and inflicting upon us the worst football of all kind. No, the worst thing was that he kept saying he hadn't been given a fair chance at Villa. Sorry Alex, you got a fair chance. You got sacked because you're s**t. And that's The Truth. That's right, two capital Ts. An insufferable manager.

"We've decided to be ambitious and play 5-4-1"

6. Lawrie Sanchez

From hero to worse than zero in a couple of months, Lawrie Sanchez nearly did the same thing as Steve Kean. He took over an established Premier League club in trouble, somehow managed to keep them up, and then embarked on an orgy of incompetence and stupid decisions.

If there is one thing I hate, it's a manager always signing the same players all the time, whenever they move club. Be it Harry Redknapp, Big Sam (whose relationship with Kevin Nolan borders on the obscene) or even José Mourinho and his love of Portugeezers. It's a real pet peeve. It stinks of complacency and laziness.

So you can understand when I wasn't best pleased that we suddenly saw an influx of Northern Ireland players at Craven Cottage. Whilst Aaron Hughes and, to a certain extent, Chris Baird, were successes, I still can't count Steven Davies and David Healy amongst that list of players. Add to that a list of Championship players for massive fees (we're talking about Fulham here) and you can understand the frustration. It was all too predictable when Lawrie's immovable 4-4-2 with Healy and Diomansy Kamara (gasps!) up front failed to live up to his expectations. Fulham were unsurprisingly heading towards the Champo. It was a relief when a clearly out of his depth Lawrie was sacked, and the club was saved. Since then? He's managed Barnet. I rest my case.

"My rose-tinted glasses show me that Lee Cook and David Healy are Premier League material."

7. Claudio Ranieri

The Tinkerman. I never understood the sort of friendly patronising attitude everyone had towards Ranieri. People simply brushed it off and remember his time with fondness. Seriously?

The man was an embarrassment. He still couldn't speak a damn word of English after about 4 years at the club! That's just shocking, no matter what.

His management skills? The man never knew what he was doing. It was so obvious. And he had a great team, even before Abramovich's arrival.

I think people finally started to understand how rubbish he was when Chelsea threw away the Monaco tie in the Champions' League. I mean, they lost 5-3 on aggregate. 5-3! Even though Monaco played down to 10 and Chelsea led 2-0 at home! How did that happen? It happened because of gross incompetence. That's how you have to qualify it when your team was Cudicini, Melchiot (Johnson), Gallas, Terry, Bridge, Gronkjaer, Lampard, Geremi (Parker), Cole, Hasselbaink (Crespo), Gudjohnsen. If I did the same kind of thing at work, I'd be out of the job and I'd need about 10 years before finding the same kind of work. But we're talking about football, so people now remember this incapable manager fondly. Even though he failed to even mount a title challenge with such great teams. Weird.

"My translator is down there. Go talk to him. Because I don't even know what I'm talking about."

8. Christian Gross

"The ticket to my dreams". That's what Christian Gross told us when he arrived at White Hart lane, brandishing his train ticket for all to see. You gotta love the over-confidence. Especially when it makes the man look like a fool several months later.

I guess Alan Sugar was a visionary by appointing a rubbish foreign manager. So many owners followed his path. I suppose we can thank Sugar and Gross for their contribution to football and its comic value.

Gross was simply unprepared and unqualified to take over. He was constantly criticised by the press, clearly didn't connect with his players, and was unsure as to which type of football he wanted his team to play. All in all, it was a disaster. And it lasted 9 whole months. Impressive.

On a side note, it was extremely funny to see him do well with Basel a couple of years back. If only for brining back the memory of the train ticket press conference. Glorious.

"Did I buy a return ticket? Why are you asking me this?"

9. Sammy Lee

I could have put Chris Hutchings there. But Sammy Lee was undoubtedly worse as he took over a better club. If ever there was a reason why many owners don't go for assistants, it's Sammy Lee. I don't think I need to add anything to that. He's the reason they brought Gary Megson to the club. Yikes.




10. Alan Shearer, Tony Adams and Paul Ince

I've decided to put them all together because a lesson should be learned there. "A great manager a great player does not make", Shakespeare would have said. And the Old Bard would have been right on cue with that assessment. It's fair to say that Shearer, Adams and Ince all had stellar careers. They played for great clubs, they played for their country, they were loved by their fans and respected by opponents. But they simply don't make good managers.