Why Ian Holloway May Be the Most Overrated Manager in History

With his witty disposition, colourful analogies and entertaining manner, it's easy to see why most football fans have a soft spot for Ian Holloway. So much so his poor managerial record is often overlooked, and instead we lavish attention on his effervescent personality. But if we analyse his history in some scrutiny, there's a case to be made for Holloway being one of the most overrated managers in history.

Holloway's first full managerial position (excluding his player-manager days at Bristol Rovers) was in 2001 with Queens Park Rangers. Appointed halfway through the season, his main aim was to keep QPR in Division One. He failed to do so and, for the first time in 34 years, QPR were relegated to the third tier of English football.

Holloway stayed with QPR and did eventually win promotion but only on the third time of asking. The following year Holloway guided QPR to an 11th-place finish in the Championship. In the 2005-06 season, the team finished a lowly 21st, and Holloway was suspended by the club. In the six years Holloway spent at QPR, he left the club in exactly the same position as when he took over.

In June 2006 Holloway took over from Tony Pulis as manager of Plymouth Argyle. In the 2006-07 Championship season, Holloway guided the team to an 11th-place finish, a slight improvement on the 14th-place finish achieved by Pulis the previous year. The difference, however, is that Pulis took over a team many tipped for relegation and turned them into a solid mid-table team, whereas Holloway took over a solid mid-table team and failed to improve them by any real measure.

Holloway moved to Leicester City in November 2007, much to the annoyance of Plymouth Argyle chairman Paul Stapleton, who criticised him for allowing a number of high-profile players to leave the club during the previous January transfer window.

Holloway was a disaster at Leicester, winning just nine out of 32 games and getting the club relegated. Several years later in a report by The Guardian's Chris Wheeler, Holloway admitted he regretted leaving Plymouth for Leicester, saying “I was given some decent values from my mum and dad in our council house, and one of them was honesty and trust and loyalty. And I forgot to do all that at Plymouth. I left them. And I made the biggest mistake of my life.”

After almost a year without a club, Karl Oyston approached Holloway about a vacant position at a little seaside club called Blackpool. In his first season, Holloway guided the club to promotion via a dramatic play-off win against Cardiff. This is the most significant moment of his career so far, and one Holloway himself cites as the greatest moment of his life, second only to the birth of his son. Taking an unfashionable Blackpool side and winning promotion with an attractive, high-tempo attacking style certainly deserves credit.

But was Holloway's time at Blackpool successful? He certainly started his Premiership campaign brightly, and was a comfortable 11th-place by Christmas. However, his side were to go on a dismal run of form, winning only three games from January to the end of the season. This dramatic downturn in form led to relegation on the final day of the season.

The following year Holloway again guided Blackpool to a play-off finish in the Championship but was unable to get them promotion. Most would look at Holloway's time at Blackpool as successful given his achievement of promotion, but Holloway's win percentage of league games at Blackpool was just 37.8 percent.

This brings us to Holloway's most recent club, Crystal Palace.

Holloway was appointed on November 3, 2012, inheriting a team that was on an 11-game unbeaten run under previous boss Dougie Freedman. At the time of his appointment, Palace had one of the best squads in the Championship, and promotion was a very realistic possibility. However, Palace only just made the play-offs after a dismal end-of-season run that saw just one win in their last 10 league games.

Holloway found life in the top flight much more difficult second time around—his Palace team have won one and lost five of their first six games, leaving them in 19th-place. Indeed, Holloway has won just two of his last 16 games in charge of the Eagles.

Most people love Holloway, but his record as a manager speaks for itself. In all the clubs he's managed, Holloway's win ratio is just 37.45 percent. To put this into perspective, Steve McClaren's win ratio is 44.89 percent. Even Roy Keane has a better win percentage at 38.67 percent, and he's not the greatest manager.

So what next for a manager with three relegations on his CV? Aside from one season at Blackpool, Holloway's managerial career has been anything but successful. But perhaps there's one more chance for him to prove his critics wrong, providing he can find a club that's more interested in having a witty, likable manager than getting results on the pitch.