Ranking every 2025-26 Premier League manager by their playing career
Premier League managers from Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United and more enjoyed rich and varied playing careers – but who enjoyed the most success as a footballer?
The path to becoming a Premier League manager is not a straightforward one and it is also incredibly varied.
From Champions League winners to amateur footballers, here’s how the manager of every 2025-26 Premier League club fared in their own playing career.
20. Tottenham – Thomas Frank
New Tottenham boss Frank is a rarity in the Premier League because he never actually played professional football.
Instead, Frank cut his teeth and earned his managerial reputation in the youth set-ups of the Danish national team, coaching the under-16s, under-17s and under-19s.
READ: Where Thomas Frank to Spurs ranks in the biggest fees ever paid for a manager
19. Wolves – Vitor Pereira
Before he was downing pints in the pubs of Wolverhampton, Pereira played his football in the amateur leagues of Portugal.
In total, he played for seven clubs as a midfielder but never made it to the professional level.
18. Brighton – Fabian Hurzeler
Hurzeler began his playing career in the youth academy of Bayern Munich, having joined at the age 10, but struggled to progress up the ranks.
By the time he turned professional, he was playing for Bayern’s second team and by 22, he all but ended his playing career, choosing to focus on the coaching side of the game.
He did not hang his boots up completely as he played at an amateur level until 2022 when he got the St Pauli job.
17. Sunderland – Regis Le Bris
Frencmah Le Bris did not have much of a playing career to talk about, having made less than 90 appearances in total.
The bulk of those came at French outfit Stade Lavallois before he ended his career at Ronse in 2003.
16. Fulham – Marco Silva
Silva made just 139 appearances in his senior career, with almost all of them coming at GD Estoril Praia in his home country.
After retiring in 2011, Silva was named director of football at Estoril, but soon replaced Vinicius Eutropio as manager.
15. West Ham – Graham Potter
Potter played for eight clubs in his career but failed to make a real impression at most of them.
Born in Solihull, he began at Birmingham but was sent on loan to Wycombe Wanderers before a permanent move to Stoke in 1993.
He had spells at Southampton, West Brom, Northampton and Reading afterwards, before finding a more permanent home at York City.
He played over 100 times for the Minstermen before another move, this time to Shrewsbury Town on loan.
Potter ended his playing career at Maccefied Town in 2005 before taking up coaching in 2008.
14. Leeds United – Daniel Farke
With a career that saw him at five different clubs, Farke registered a little over 100 league games in his time as a player.
However, it was SV Lippstadt in Germany where he played the most, having three spells at the club and playing 146 times in all competitions.
Farke’s one piece of silverware was the Westphalia Cup he won with TuS Paderborn-Neuhaus in 1996.
13. Aston Villa – Unai Emery
As a player, Emery was part of the Real Sociedad youth academy but struggled to break into the first team.
By the time he was 24, he had played a total of five times in La Liga and in search of gametime, dropped down to the Segunda, joining Toledo.
He stayed at the second-tier club for four years before heading to Racing Ferrol and then Leganes.
12. Newcastle – Eddie Howe
Even before he took the manager’s job at Bournemouth, Howe had a long-standing relationship with the club after playing over 200 games.
He came up through the youth academy before breaking into the first team as a centre back and was Harry Redknapp’s first signing at Portsmouth, joining for £400,000 in March 2002.
However, knee injuries would scupper Howe’s career as he injured it on his debut against Preston.
Howe returned for the opening game of the 2002-03 season only to injure it again as his stock dropped.
In 2004, he transferred to Bournemouth initially on loan before a fan-led group raised the £21,000 needed for the permanent transfer.
In 2007, injuries forced him to call it quits and he moved to a coaching role at the club.
11. Liverpool – Arne Slot
The newest Premier League-winning manager had a long playing career, but one that did not produce too many trophies.
Slot began at FC Zwolle in his native Netherlands, making 195 appearances in an attacking midfielder role before moving to NAC Breda in 2002.
He again stayed for a long time, registering 154 games and got a taste of European football as they reached the first round of the UEFA Cup in 2003.
Praised for his passing and vision rather than his speed, Slot hung up his boots in 2013 after playing for PEC Zwolle.
10. Everton – David Moyes
Before stepping into the dugout, Moyes was a hard-hitting centre back. We’d expect nothing else.
The Glasweigan cut his teeth at Celtic, making 24 appearances for the Hoops and winning the league in 1982 before moving to England in 1983.
In 1990, he returned north to Dunfermline Athletic, making 105 appearances for the club as well as finishing as runners-up in the Scottish League Cup.
He ended his playing career at Preston, where he would go on to take the manager’s job.
9. Crystal Palace – Oliver Glasner
Apart from three loan appearances at LASK, Glasner was a one-club man as he spent his entire career at Austrian Bundesliga club SV Ried.
The Crystal Palace boss was a defender and helped Ried achieve promotion to the top division in 1995.
Three years later and he was part of the team that won the club their first Austrian Cup but they were relegated back to the second division in 2003.
Glasner stayed and helped them return to the Bundesliga in 2005 and was again part of the squad that won the Austrian Cup in 2011.
His playing career came to an end after coming away with a concussion following an aerial duel and he was diagnosed with a brain haemorrhage.
An emergency operation saved him but on the advice of the doctors, Glasner retired from playing, having made 572 appearances for Ried.
8. Bournemoth – Andoni Iraola
Born in the Basque town of Usurbil, playing for Athletic Bilbao was always the likely outcome for Iraola.
Having spent eight years in the youth academy of Antiguoko, he moved to Athletic in 1999 and broke into the first team in 2003, going on to make 508 appearances for the club, putting him fourth in their all-time appearances list.
However, trophies eluded him and he finished runner-up on five occasions – once in the Europa League, once in the Spanish Supercup and three times in the Copa del Rey.
He was though part of a memorable win against Ferguson’s Manchester United. Aged 33, Iraola moved to the MLS with New York City FC and retired in 2016.
7. Brentford – Keith Andrews
The Irishman had a long playing career, primarily in the Football League as he featured in all four professional English leagues.
Andrews started his career at Wolves, but it was at MK Dons where he broke through. Winning the League Two Player of the Year award in 2008, he was signed by Premier League club Blackburn.
Spells at Ipswich, West Brom and Bolton ended his career, which ran from 1999 to 2015.
In total, the Irishman made 205 appearances in the Championship for eight different clubs but also played 85 times in the Premier League at West Brom, Blackburn and Wolves.
His club form also saw him called up to the Ireland squad and he played at Euro 2012.
6. Arsenal – Mikel Arteta
Current Arsenal boss Arteta made his name in England at Everton, having come through the Barcelona youth academy.
But before he arrived at Goodison, the central midfielder played at PSG, Rangers and then Real Sociedad.
In 2005, he switched to the Premier League where he would stay until he retired, first at Everton and then Arsenal from 2011 to 2016.
However, Arteta won comparatively little as a player with a Scottish title with Rangers and two FA Cups with Arsenal being the highlights.
QUIZ: Can you name every player Mikel Arteta has signed for Arsenal?
5. Chelsea – Enzo Maresca
After starting his career at West Brom of all places, midfielder Maresca moved to Juventus in 2000, winning Serie A in the 2001-02 season.
But it was in Spain where Maresca enjoyed his best years, becoming a two-time UEFA Cup winner with Sevilla as well as winning the UEFA Super Cup, Copa del Rey and Spanish Super Cup.
After Sevilla, Maresca headed to Olympiacos and played at Malaga, Sampdoria and Palermo before ending his career in 2017 at Hellas Verona.
4. Burnley – Scott Parker
London-born and bred, Parker played almost his entire career in the capital with Charlton, Chelsea, West Ham, Tottenham and Fulham.
The England international also spent two years at Newcastle and won 18 England caps.
3. Nottingham Forest – Nuno Espirito Santo
The only goalkeeper on this list is also one of the most decorated, having won the Portuguese league on four occasions with Porto.
Nuno was also part of Porto’s remarkable Champions League run of 2003-04 when Jose Mourinho guided them to European glory. A year prior, Porto also won the UEFA Cup.
Away from Portugal, Nuno also won the Spanish Cup with Deportivo de La Coruna in 2002.
2. Manchester United – Ruben Amorim
Before Amorim made his way into the Old Trafford dugout, he enjoyed a successful playing career at Benfica.
The Lisbon-born midfielder began his senior career at Belenense, but it was when he moved to Estadio da Luz that the medals started stacking up.
While at Benfica, Amorim won six league titles and even a loan spell at Braga saw him end the year as champion.
That loan period came about after a clash with manager Jorge Jesus, which saw Amorim refuse to train with the reserve squad.
In January, he headed for Braga and returned to Benfica the following year after Jesus narrowly avoided the sack.
Amorim’s career came to an end in June 2017 after a year out due to a rupture of the cruciate ligament in his right knee saw him retire.
1. Manchester City – Pep Guardiola
As long as Guardiola stays in the league, he is always going to top rankings like this.
Before he was one of the best managers in the history of the game, was the linchpin of Johan Cruyff’s Dream Team, winning Barcelona’s first European Cup in 1992.
From 1991 to 1994, the Catalans won four consecutive league titles and Guardiola was named captain in 1997.
By the time the defensive midfielder left the Camp Nou in 2001, he had played 384 times and won six league titles.
His post-Barca career was less illustrious. But we can forgive him that.
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