At work, our performance is analysed, judged, and quantified. 

But there’s no other job in England that suffers from the level of scrutiny that a Premier League manager does. 

Premier League managers must appease everyone from players and fans to pundits and owners. In most cases, the higher the % of wins that a manager achieves and the greater their goal difference (as a proxy for their team’s style of play), the less scrutiny they endure. 

We wanted to see who were the best (and worst) Premier League managers in history. 

Here’s what we found. 

Win %

Win percentage is the best way to determine a manager’s success. 

The only managers that have been analysed here are those with more than 50 Premier League matches in charge. 

It should be acknowledged that win percentage, like any metric, isn’t a perfect proxy for measuring a manager’s ability. Sometimes, good managers are at worse clubs (defined as less money to spend than other clubs and less brand power to attract better players). But looking at a manager’s entire Premier League career still provides some insight into their ability to impact the teams they are in charge of.

Across all managers in the Premier League with 50+ games, the average win percentage is 35%. But as you can see below, many managers are far from average - in both directions. 

Looking solely at win percentage, Pep Guardiola is the clear front-runner. This isn’t surprising. After all, the Spanish manager has led Manchester City to a Treble, as well as a Centurian’s winning season.

Another high ranker here is Sir Alex Ferguson, who’s the only other manager on the list to win a treble - with Manchester United in 1999.

Another trend is that the top six managers have all won the Premier League league title.

Interestingly, managers who have won the Champions League aren’t necessarily those with the highest win rate in the Premier League. In the table, the managers that have won the Champions League are spread from poll position to the very bottom - Pep Guardiola and Rafa Benitez, respectfully.

The other managers who have had European glory are Sir Alex Ferguson, Jurgen Klopp, and Thomas Tuchel.

In general, managers who have managed wealthier teams have achieved a better win rate. Subjectively speaking, Sean Dyche is a well-respected manager who fails to make it into the top 20 based on win %, but there’s a strong case that he would make many people’s top 20 manager list.

That’s why it’s important to look at other measurements of a manager’s skills. 

Points per match

Next, we turn our attention to points per match to see which managers secure the most points on average. 

Again, we’re just looking at Premier League managers with 50+ games in charge. 

Managers in our dataset averaged around 1.32 points per match. As the maximum number of points per match is three, a difference of one or two points per match is dramatic.

While Pep Guardiola leads the table again, it’s worth noting that Sir Alex Ferguson was manager of Manchester United for 810 games. Pep has managed Manchester City for a fraction of that - 283 games. 

So, Ferguson’s points per minute (2.16) is a better reflection of his ability due to the larger sample size. This isn’t to say that managers with fewer games - like Jurgen Klopp, Roberto Mancini and Pep - are lesser managers, but it’s to recognise the incredible feat of the Scot's reign at United. 

His high points per game were more consistent over a much longer period, where his team were subject to varying opposition, rule changes, and everything else that makes football so random. 

The managers at the other end of the table often don’t stay in charge of Premier League clubs for too long. 

Only two managers in the bottom 20 - Paul Lambert (154) and Chris Hughton (174) - have been in charge for longer than 140 Premier League games. 

But points per game aren’t the only indicator of a manager’s dominance. We can look at the Premier League manager’s goal difference per game which shows us just how strong each manager made their team during their time in charge. 

The goal difference matrix

In the chart below, each dot represents one manager, ranked both by goal difference per game (y-axis) and total games in charge (x-axis). 

Each quadrant tells a different story:

• Top right: managers like Arsene Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson tell a story of consistency: They both had over 800 games in charge but still drastically outperformed the average goal difference per game.

• Bottom right: The veterans of the Premier League - Roy Hodgson, Harry Redknapp, Sam Allardyce. While all - but David Moyes - sit in the negative for goal difference per game, this doesn’t account for the teams that they’ve managed. They’re often bought in to manage teams at the bottom half of the table which rightfully prioritise security over dominant offensive performances. 

• Top left: This is where the new generation of high-flyers lie - managers with exceptionally high goal difference per game, but just over a slightly shorter period. They’ve managed the top teams and have prioritised offensive styles of play.

But we wanted to put this into context, to show that some managers have achieved a lot with far fewer resources.

So, we looked at each manager’s points compared to their overall expenditure. For example:

• Sam Allardyce doesn’t make it into the top 20 highest points per match, but when we adjusted the data to look at how much each manager spent, he is second. 

The transfer expenditure data was taken from Transfer Markt. The data is not adjusted for inflation, which skews it in favour of managers who were in charge earlier than after. 

Given the huge increase in transfer prices over the last few years, this means that modern managers will look like they’ve spent more - which is sometimes true and sometimes not. 

This category is dominated by veteran managers. Again, this may be a result of their transfer costs not being as high, but it also gives a better indication of a manager’s skill despite their financial backing.

Interestingly, all the high flyers rank less on this metric than the others. Pep Guardiola, the front-runner, ranks 36th, Mourinho ranks 28th and Jurgen Klopp ranks 23rd. 

Klopp’s ranking here is perhaps the most impressive. With Liverpool’s savvy, yet effective, spending over the past decade, they’ve managed to achieve a lot with less money spent. 

Erik ten Hag (Manchester United) and Thomas Tuhcel (Chelsea) are perhaps the most questionable. Both managers have been part of teams that have spent unwisely and have subsequently underperformed in the Premier League. It’s no surprise that they slot far lower in the ranking.

The final whistle

There are so many factors at play when looking at who’s the best and worst manager. 

But, across the board, two categories of managers stand out in the Premier League:

The high flyers: the managers that spend a lot of money but also yield very good results for their fans.

• Pep Guardiola

• Sir Alex Ferguson

• Jurgen Klopp

• Arsene Wenger

• Roberto Mancini

• Jose Mourinho

The Premier League veterans: the managers who make the best out of a difficult situation, cementing themselves as reliable leaders who can compete and survive. 

• Sam Allardyce

• Harry Redknapp

• David Moyes

• Martin O’Neill

• Gerard Houllier

• Sean Dyche

Of course, at the end of the day, this is all subjective. And no one competes with Pat Rices’ 100% managerial record with Arsenal (small print: in three games), right? 

Right?