7 Premier League managers who left behind an absolute mess: Ten Hag, Hodgson…
Jurgen Klopp’s legacy at Liverpool has arguably been boosted since his departure, having left behind a squad in a really healthy shape to compete under his successor Arne Slot.
That’s not an easy thing to do, as evidenced by some legendary Premier League-winning managers leaving behind squads that aren’t fit for purpose.
Here are seven Premier League managers who left behind an absolute mess.
Erik ten Hag
The big one.
The dust is still settling from the Dutchman’s Old Trafford exit and some of the players signed in his image may go on to turn things around, but the early signs are not good. That’s putting it mildly.
Ten Hag will justifiably point to the domestic cups he led the club to in each of his two full seasons at the helm, because otherwise his tenure will surely go down as an absolute catastrophe. It might well take them years to recover from the damage done.
Back in 2022, Ten Hag’s predecessor Ralf Rangnick stated that the squad required “open-heart” surgery; an assessment that has aged like a fine wine.
But if anything, Ten Hag targeting the Eredivisie market, Dutch players and those he’s worked with before has seen the state of United’s squad decline further. As if the surgeon in chart of Manchester United’s grand excision was a hatchet-wielding madman.
Antony, Mason Mount, Tyrell Malacia and Casemiro have proven unmitigated disasters. Andre Onana, Rasmus Hojlund and Lisandro Martinez leave major question marks.
The jury remains out on 2024 additions Joshua Zirkzee, Mathijs De Ligy, Leny Yoro and Manuel Ugarte but their first season at Old Trafford has the club hurtling towards – by some distance – their worst campaign of the Premier League era.
Roy Hodgson
It’s harsh to blame all of Liverpool’s problems at the turn of the 2010s on Hodgson.
Rafael Benitez left a sinking ship in 2010; an underwhelming seventh-place finish reflective of the concerning direction of travel in the dreadful latter days of Tom Hicks and George Gillett. There’s certainly a case for including Rafa himself in this list.
Fresh from leading Fulham to a Europa League final, Hodgson was handed the reins at Anfield and tasked with getting the club moving back in the right direction. But that was never likely to happen when you take a look at the state of his one and only transfer window at the helm.
Where do you want to start? Christian Poulsen? Milan Jovanovic? Joe Cole? Paul Konchesky? Oof.
Brendan Rodgers
The less said about Andy Carroll the better, but the addition of Luis Suarez in January 2011 went a long way to righting the wrongs of the short-lived Hodgson era on Merseyside. Kenny Dalglish also recruited Jordan Henderson, who proved himself a great buy over time.
Daniel Sturridge and Philippe Coutinho were also quality additions in Rodgers’ first summer, with those pieces eventually culminating in a squad that – while unbalanced – was able to challenge Manchester City for the Premier League title in 2013-14.
Suarez’s departure soon showed that all of that was built on sand, and the players Rodgers signed to replace the inspirational talisman were complete duds.
He did at least bring in Roberto Firmino, albeit without knowing what to do with him, during the latter time of his reign. Ultimately Jurgen Klopp was required to oversee a complete squad overhaul to make the Reds seriously competitive again.
Ronald Koeman
If you take a look at Koeman’s results at Everton, they’re much of a muchness with the many other coaches of the underwhelming Farhad Moshiri era. In fact, his win percentage is actually better than every manager that’s succeeded him bar Carlo Ancelotti.
But his standing among the Everton faithful is somewhere near the floor, in large part thanks to the legacy he left in terms of recruitment. He inherited a decent squad, featuring an on-fire Romelu Lukaku, but left behind something of a rabble.
Seven years later they’ve arguably not recovered from the recruitment decisions. To be fair, Koeman did sign Jordan Pickford from Sunderland and Dominic Calvert-Lewin for a tiny fee from Sheffield United.
But there were also considerable sums spent on Gylfi Sigurdsson, Yannick Bolasie, Ashley Williams, Nikola Vlasic, Morgan Schneiderlin and Davy Klaassen.
READ: Ranking every Everton manager of the Premier League era from worst to best
Sir Alex Ferguson
This one is both controversial and non-controversial.
On the one hand, Ferguson’s legacy at Old Trafford is Teflon.
His greatness as a manager was underlined by riding off into the sunset with a 13th Premier League title… emphatically won with Tom Cleverley, Phil Jones, Chris Smalling and even Anders Lindegaard all clocking up considerable minutes.
But Robin Van Persie’s goals and their 11-point lead over runners-up Manchester City masked the serious deficiencies of an ageing squad that needed attention.
The likes of Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic, Wayne Rooney and even Van Persie would never play to quite that standard ever again, while both Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs – now in their fifties, if you need a reminder of how much they were getting on – played their part that year.
“We were fully focused and committed to the process of the fundamental rebuilding that is required for the senior squad,” successor David Moyes reflected after his sacking.
“This had to be achieved whilst delivering positive results in the Premier League and the Champions League.
However, during this period of transition, performances and results have not been what Manchester United and its fans are used to or expect, and I both understand and share their frustration.”
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Arsene Wenger
Arsenal finished in the top four for 20 consecutive seasons under Wenger but the club’s malaise in his final seasons saw them slip to become Europa League also-rans.
Away from all the noise of AFTV and impassioned viral #WengerOut rants, their mediocre new reality was reflected by his successor Unai Emery keeping them at that level before they fell further down to eighth, out of Europe entirely, in Mikel Arteta’s early years.
Wenger did bring in both Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang towards the end of his time at The Emirates, who along with Mesut Ozil kept the Gunners ticking along at that sort of good-but-not-good-enough level in the late 2010s.
Ultimately you look at the squad Wenger left behind – from a past-it Petr Cech to an ageing Laurent Koscielny to questionable additions like Sead Kolasinac, Shkodran Mustafi and Henrikh Mkhitaryan – and it’s no wonder that Arsenal were where they were.
Emery is a good coach but was unable to steer them where they wanted to be. It’s taken a complete rebuild under Arteta for that.
Manuel Pellegrini
You could probably take your pick when it comes to West Ham managers here, and there’s already a very strong case to be made for including Julen Lopetegui.
We’ve decided to give him the benefit of the doubt for now; summer 2024 signings Crysensio Summerville, Guido Rodriguez, Max Kilman, Luis Guilherme and Aaron Wan-Bissaka might yet come good under Graham Potter.
We’re less convinced by Niclas Fullkrug, who already appears destined for pride of place in the Hammers’ perplexing graveyard of failed striker signings.
For a West Ham entry, we can’t look past Pellegrini, whose 18 months between Moyes’ two stints has not aged well.
The Chilean spent approximately £155million over just three windows and twice broke the club’s transfer record to bring in Felipe Anderson and Sebastien Haller.