Chris Wilder made his way past Phil Brown on the list of the top ten worst Premier League managers ever based on PPG. Can Steve Cooper catch up?
Vincent Kompany (0.63) and Rob Edwards (0.68) are both only spared by the 50-game cut-off point here. Their records are the second and third-worst respectively of all Premier League managers with at least 25 matches. Daniel Farke’s is the worst (0.53) so it might be a good job Leeds did not go up.
The best Premier League managers of all time ranked by PPG are laughing at this sorry lot.
10) John Deehan (Norwich): 0.93 pts per game
Barely surpassing the number of games needed for eligibility on this list, Deehan inherited a fine Norwich side when Mike Walker jumped ship to Everton in January 1994 but the Canaries were soon lost down the mine, losing 26 and winning just 11 games under the man who would take them back down into the First Division; Deehan guided Wigan to the Third Division title in his next and only other permanent post as a first-team manager, which he left in 1998.
9) Neil Warnock (Sheffield United, QPR, Crystal Palace and Cardiff): 0.93 pts per game
Between those four Premier League posts, Warnock only ever completed two full seasons. It just so happens that those were the campaigns which resulted in relegation, with the other two seeing the clubs in question survive after sacking him. The great man earned his ultimately unsuccessful tilts with Sheffield United and Cardiff, and would not have begrudged QPR or Palace their safety after being replaced in January 2012 and December 2014 respectively.
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8) Steve Cooper (Nottingham Forest and Leicester): 0.90 pts per game
It is a harsh reflection on a job done so well in sub-optimal circumstances that Nottingham Forest supporters showed their love and appreciation to Cooper in the immediate aftermath of a 5-0 defeat to Fulham, less than a fortnight before he was sacked. The Trees were still outside the relegation zone when the popular manager was shown the door and his return with Leicester will be emotional – if he survives the growing chorus of supporters calling for him to go.
7) Steve Kean (Blackburn): 0.90 pts per game
Former Singapore League champion and 2015 Coach of the Year Kean nevertheless had a chastening start to life in management, replacing Sam Allardyce in controversial conditions and proceeding to entirely torpedo Blackburn’s established Premier League status of the previous decade. Forcing Liverpool into sacking Roy Hodgson and beating both Arsenal and Manchester United en route to relegation were genuine achievements.
6) Phil Brown (Hull): 0.88 pts per game
That phenomenal Geovanni-inspired start to the 2008/09 season is doing some ludicrously heavy lifting, a run of six wins, two draws and one defeat to kick off Hull’s first top-flight season accounting for 20 of Brown’s 59 career Premier League points as a manager. That second bite at the cherry seems unlikely to materialise unless he takes Kidderminster up through the divisions.
5) Chris Wilder (Sheffield United): 0.88 pts per game
That 2019/20 season, in which those revolutionary Blades finished two points behind Arsenal, feels like a bygone era. Wilder followed that up with one of the worst campaigns in Premier League history, picking up two points from 17 lockdown games before a handful of meaningless wins precluded his March 2021 exit. Then in December 2023 he and they picked up where everything was left off: with Sheffield United by far the worst team in the division.
4) Iain Dowie (Crystal Palace, Charlton and Hull): 0.81 pts per game
Properly miserable territory now, this. Dowie’s fingerprints were all over relegations in all three of his Premier League jobs: with Palace despite Andy Johnson’s best efforts; guiding Charlton to an unrecoverable position of 20th before his November sacking; and finishing the fine work of Brown when he took over Hull in March 2010.
3) David Wagner (Huddersfield): 0.80 pts per game
One remarkable survival season with Huddersfield was immediately followed by a dreadful season which culminated in Wagner leaving by mutual consent after winning three of his last 32 games. He could well be back soon with Norwich so we can do the whole German/American thing again.
2) Mick McCarthy (Sunderland and Wolves): 0.79 pts per game
Roy Keane’s best friend is forever indebted to Derby for distracting from just how dreadful a record he has. McCarthy inherited an awful Sunderland side in 2002/03 but between that side and the iteration he guided back up through securing the Championship title two years later, the Irishman lost his first 14 games as a top-flight manager, scoring four goals. Those two Sunderland outfits still rank among the worst Premier League teams ever and while McCarthy did scrape through survival battles with Wolves in 2010 and 2011, he was sacked with them crashing inexorably back into the second tier in 2012.
1) Scott Parker (Fulham and Bournemouth): 0.77 pts per game
Bayern Munich have a lot to answer for, because had they not poached Vincent Kompany and sparked a mighty Burnley panic then Parker’s final match as a manager in English football might forever have remained a 9-0 thrashing after which he condemned Bournemouth to relegation, was subsequently sacked and then had to watch complete novice Gary O’Neil keep them up with relative ease. The level of fawning across his two brief Premier League dalliances with Fulham belied some really quite poor results. He will get the Clarets promoted and then look awkwardly out of his depth in the top flight because that is the way.
