Ranking the worst ever ‘Big Six’ managers by their Premier League win record
Ruben Amorim has made a disastrous start to life as Manchester United manager, but how does his record stack up against the worst of the Premier League’s ‘big six’ clubs over the years?
We’ve taken a closer look at how Amorim’s Premier League record stacks up against the very worst of Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham managers in years gone by.
Note: we’ve only gone back to when the concept of ‘the big six’ has been a thing – going back to Manchester City’s takeover in 2008, and when Tottenham also started to seriously challenge the old ‘Sky Four’ of Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal in challenging for the Champions League spots.
Every City manager before the takeover and every Tottenham manager before Harry Redknapp would have featured in this top 10, but it wouldn’t be fair to judge them against current-day ‘big six’ standards.
Surprisingly enough, David Moyes at Manchester United (1.67 points per game) just misses out on cracking the top 10.
Without further ado, here’s the full list:
10. Mauricio Pochettino – Chelsea
Games: 38
Win rate: 47%
Points per game (PPG): 1.66
The Argentinian did a superb job at Tottenham, while his one-season stint at Chelsea looks better looking back.
He struggled for results initially but had the Blues moving in the right direction in the end. A notable step forward from the pure disarray of the early Todd Boehly era.
9. Jose Mourinho – Tottenham
Games: 58
Win rate: 46%
Points per game (PPG): 1.64
Who’d have thought we’d ever see Mourinho’s name here?
Not him, that’s for sure. The Portuguese coach not unfairly thinks of himself as a serial winner, but ultimately the Spursiness of Tottenham proved too powerful as he trundled to the worst stint of his managerial career since his early days at Benfica.
The awkward marriage was shown in toe-curling detail in the club’s All Or Nothing Amazon documentary. One of those rare appointments where both manager and chairman look back with a sense of “what was I thinking?”.
8. Ralf Rangnick – Manchester United
Games: 24
Win rate: 41%
Points per game (PPG): 1.54
He was only an interim, but Rangnick had enough games to be judged.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer couldn’t figure out how to get the team functioning with returning club icon Cristiano Ronaldo, and ultimately nor could his successor.
The respected German tactician did at least offer some home truths about the state the club was in, while it was no surprise he didn’t take up the role of sporting director as originally planned after United succumbed to a worst-ever Premier League points tally (58).
You might have thought that was as bad as things could get for Manchester United. You’d have been mistaken.
7. Frank Lampard – Chelsea
Games: 66
Win rate: 43%
Points per game (PPG): 1.52
The legendary former Chelsea midfielder would have missed out on a place here were it not for his ill-fated second stint in the dugout at Stamford Bridge, which brought his average right down.
The first time around Lampard did a respectable enough job across 18 months in charge, bringing through youth amid a transfer ban and qualifying them for the Champions League they won under his successor.
But he won one and lost six of nine matches after replacing Graham Potter on an interim basis, averaging just 0.56 points per game as the Blues crashed to a 12th-place finish. More on Chelsea’s infamously disastrous 2022-23 campaign later…
6. Ange Postecoglou – Tottenham
Games: 63
Win rate: 46%
Points per game (PPG): 1.52
The Australian created Premier League history with a new record for the most points earned by a manager in their first nine matches in the competition – 23, from seven wins and two draws.
He’s found points considerably harder to come by since then, particularly this season. The Tottenham hierarchy have shown patience amid their injury crisis. Watch this space to see whether he can turn things around from here.
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5. Kenny Dalglish – Liverpool
Games: 56
Win rate: 42%
Points per game (PPG): 1.51
Unlike every other name in this top 10, King Kenny did at least deliver silverware.
After steering Liverpool to a respectable-in-the-end sixth place finish after succeeding Roy Hodgson in January 2011, Dalglish led the Reds to both domestic cup finals in his one full season in charge.
They beat Cardiff on penalties in the League Cup at Wembley before suffering a narrow defeat to Chelsea in the FA Cup. Liverpool did finish eighth that year, though, their joint-lowest placing of the Premier League era.
READ: Every Premier League club’s best and worst season: finishes, points, goals…
4. Nuno Espirito Santo – Tottenham
Games: 10
Win rate: 50%
Points per game (PPG): 1.50
It’s easy to forget that Nuno kicked off his short-lived Spurs tenure in fine fettle, leading them to 1-0 wins over Manchester City, Wolves and Watford.
Seven matches later, he was out the door. Defeats to Crystal Palace, Chelsea, Arsenal, West Ham and Manchester United were enough for Daniel Levy to act decisively.
You might argue that the decision has aged badly given the miracles Nuno is currently working at Nottingham Forest. But something about the fit felt off from the start. It’s difficult to envisage him enjoying the same success in North London.
4. Mark Hughes – Manchester City
Games: 55
Win rate: 40%
Points per game (PPG): 1.44
In mitigation for Hughes, he was appointed just before City’s game-changing takeover in 2008.
There was heavy investment but those early years were chaotic, with scattergun recruitment. Back then, the club was much closer to the clown car of the mid-noughties than Guardiola’s all-conquering juggernaut we know today.
A 10th-place finish from his sole full season in charge was underwhelming, given the sudden influx of superstars, while he was sacked in December 2009 following a run of just two wins from 11 Premier League outings.
Nowadays he’s in charge of Carlisle United, bottom of League Two.
3. Graham Potter – Chelsea
Games: 22
Win rate: 31%
Points per game (PPG): 1.27
“It was almost like the perfect storm,” Potter reflected on his whirlwind seven months at Stamford Bridge in an interview with The Telegraph.
“It was 14 matches in six weeks prior to the World Cup. It was like you were in the washing machine, that’s what we said within the staff, because the games kept coming and we had no preparation time.
Poached from Brighton, he was the first managerial appointment during the infamously chaotic early days of Todd Boehly’s ownership.
He arrived in September 2022 following the dismissal of Thomas Tuchel and only had one transfer window – which saw a record outlay for winter spending.
“The ownership decided to invest a lot of money in the squad, £300 million in the January transfer window,” he said.
“Now, if you are spending £300 million on players that are coming from outside the Premier League, from countries that are having a mid-season break, then the reality is you can’t just imagine they are going to hit the ground running and everything’s going to be fine.
“But, obviously, if you spend £300 million, the pressure on the team goes up and the pressure on the coach goes up. And people go: ‘Come on then, you’ve spent all this money.’
“I think if I’d have spent it on Harry Kane and Declan Rice, then fair enough, but at the time that was the decision.”
READ: Where are they now? The 8 largely awful signings Graham Potter made at Chelsea
2. Roy Hodgson – Liverpool
Games: 20
Win rate: 35%
Points per game (PPG): 1.25
These were days that every Liverpool fan would rather forget.
The problems at Anfield around the turn of the 2010s were bigger than the manager (see: Hicks and Gillett) but he didn’t help matters, from his tactics to his recruitment.
Hodgson has proven himself a more than capable Premier League coach elsewhere, but it just didn’t work out at Liverpool.
His rate of 1.25 points-per-game at Liverpool is actually about par for his career, but while that represents top-flight stability at clubs like West Brom, Fulham and Crystal Palace it wasn’t nearly good enough on Merseyside.
The veteran lasted barely half a season and left his post with the Reds languishing in the bottom half of the table in January 2011.
1. Ruben Amorim – Manchester United
Games: 14
Win rate: 28%
Points per game (PPG): 1.00
Number one with a bullet.
To put Amorim’s struggles at Old Trafford into context, he’s currently notching a worse Premier League record than pre-takeover managers at Manchester City like Stuart Pearce (1.19PPG) and Kevin Keegan (1.22PPG).
Frank Clark averaged exactly one point per game in charge of City and eventually saw them relegated.
In fairness to the Portuguese coach, there can be little question that he inherited the worst Manchester United squad of the Premier League era, and it’s still early days.
It’s a small sample size and all the noises coming from the club suggest he’ll be given time to turn things around.
There was a point during Mikel Arteta’s first full season at Arsenal in which he’d have featured in the upper echelons of this list, and look at him now. Trust the process?