English Premier League: 20 Worst Managers in League History

What makes a manager bad?

That's easy. Bad managers lead teams that perform poorly on the field, whether it's failing to meet lofty goals or playing precisely to poor expectations.

Instead, maybe we should ask another question. Who makes a bad manager?

That's much more difficult to answer, because it can be just about anyone.

Former players often go onto successful managerial careers. Sometimes, though, they flame out spectacularly.

Former assistants often step into the lead position and do well. How else do good managers gain experience? Often, though, they can't handle the pressure and demands of being the big dog.

So the answer to that question is everybody. And nobody.

No one is destined to become a bad football manager. But anyone can become one.

Just like these 20 guys.

20. Roy Keane

Who: Roy Keane

Team(s) managed: Sunderland, Ipswich Town

Famous for: Ruling with an iron fist, alienating players and quitting Sunderland via text message.

Degree of difficulty: Moderate. Keane earns bonus points for alienating his players despite being a former player—and a great one at that.

Keane led Sunderland to promotion from the Championship in 2007 and earned manager of the year honors.

By the end of his tenure, however, the players actually cheered his departure.

You must have done something bad if your own players are doing that.

19. Tony Adams

Who: Tony Adams

Team(s) managed: Wycombe Wanderers, Portsmouth, Gabala (current)

Famous for: Earning only 10 points in 16 matches as Portsmouth manager from October 2008 to February 2009.

Degree of difficulty: High, and Adams gets the former-great-player player bonus.

Over a 38-match season, that 10-point haul would have translated to 23.75 points.

Under Paul Hart, who replaced Adams, Portsmouth finished the season in 14th place.

18. Avram Grant

Who: Avram Grant

Team(s) managed: Hapoel Petah Tivka, Maccabi Tel Aviv (twice), Hapoel Haifa (twice), Israel, Chelsea, Portsmouth, West Ham United

Famous for: Guiding two different clubs to relegation in consecutive seasons.

Degree of difficulty: Impressive.

Grant's supporters like to point out all the good stuff he's done. But all of his supposed positives aren't actually all that great.

Sure, Grant took Chelsea to the Champions League final. But a monkey could have done the same thing with that squad. And they still didn't win, even though they probably should have

And even though Portsmouth was relegated in 2010 under Grant's guidance, they were docked nine points for going into administration. That wasn't Grant's fault, but Portsmouth finished a whopping 16 points from safety.

Grant also led Portsmouth to the 2010 FA Cup final. Big deal. Who cares about the FA Cup anymore?

The 2010-11 relegation campaign with West Ham United confirmed Grant's ineptitude as a manager.

17. Paul Ince

Who: Paul Ince

Team(s) managed: Macclesfield Town, Milton Keynes Dons (twice), Blackburn Rovers, Notts County

Famous for: Winning three times in 17 matches.

Degree of difficulty: Staggering, when you consider one of those wins came on opening day of the 2008-09 season.

Ince, who also gets bonus points for being a former player, didn't even make it to 2009 as Blackburn manager. Three wins in 17 matches will do that to you.

16. Graeme Souness

Who: Graeme Souness

Team(s) managed: Rangers, Liverpool, Galatasaray, Southampton, Torino, Benfica, Blackburn Rovers, Newcastle United.

Famous for: Ruining Liverpool. And then Newcastle.

Degree of difficulty: Astronomical.

Souness is the archetype for all great players who go onto terrible managerial careers. In a glorious playing career, Souness won five league titles and three European Cups in seven seasons.

When he quit, Liverpool had like a gazillion more league titles than Manchester United.

As a manager, he helped change that. In three seasons, his bad tactics, poor transfers and awful player management led to one of the bleakest spells for the legendary club.

Liverpool did win the 1992 FA Cup, but the Reds won nothing else. They haven't won the league since then.

Souness was appointed manager at Newcastle United in 2004. By early 2006, he had the team in a relegation battle despite spending more than £50 million on the squad.

The Magpies survived, but the damage was done. Souness started a downward spiral that ended with relegation in 2009.

15. Peter Reid

Who: Peter Reid

Team(s) managed: Manchester City, Sunderland, Leeds United, Coventry City, Thailand, Plymouth Argyle

Famous for: Hastening the fall of Leeds United.

Degree of difficulty: Moderate.

Not that long ago, Leeds United were semifinalists in the Champions League. That was in 2001.

By March of 2003, when Peter Reid was appointed manager, the club was in dire financial trouble. That led to a series of failed transfer attempts and poor loan deals for the once-proud club.

His motley crew of loaners, a group that included the ridiculous Roque Junior, picked up only eight points from the first 12 matches of the 2003-04 season.

Leeds were relegated from the Premiership the following spring. They crashed all the way to League One (third tier) and are now in the Championship.

In fairness to Reid, the club had plenty of problems before he arrived. But he didn't help matters at all.

14. Iain Dowie

Who: Iain Dowie

Team(s) managed: QPR (caretaker), Oldham Athletic, Crystal Palace, Charlton Athletic, Coventry City, QPR (full manager), Hull City

Famous for: Being part of the relegation of three teams.

Degree of difficulty: Breathtaking.

Dowie's failure at Charton is breathtaking for its sheer speed.

His predecessor at Charlton, Alan Curbishley, reigned for 15 years. Dowie got just 15 games.

Charlton got relegated the following spring. The Addicks now reside in League One (the third tier).

Dowie, for his part, is no stranger to relegation. He guided Crystal Palace there in 2005 and Hull City in 2010.

13. Alain Perrin

Who: Alain Perrin

Team(s) managed: Troyes, Marseille, Al-Ain, Portsmouth, Sochaux, Lyon, St.-Etienne, Al-Khor (current)

Famous for: Being Reggie.

Degree of difficulty: Mild.

Perrin was appointed Portsmouth manager in April 2005 and "saved" the team from relegation. But the next season he was sacked eight months into the job after winning just four times in 20 matches.

12. Brian Kidd

Who: Brian Kidd

Team(s) managed: Barrow, Preston North End, Blackburn Rovers

Famous for: Making a fool out of Sir Alex Ferguson.

Degree of difficulty: Perplexing.

After stints as manager at Barrow and Preston North End, Kidd became an assistant at Manchester United from 1988-98.

While there, he learned from one of the all-time greats: United manager Sir Alex Ferguson.

Did Kidd take what he learned from Ferguson into the head job at Blackburn? Of course not.

Instead he got Rovers relegated in 1999—just four years after they were champions.

11. Jacques Santini

Who: Jacques Santini

Team(s) managed: CA Lisieux, Toulouse FC, Lille OSC, St.-Etienne, FC Sochaux-Montbeliard, Lyon, France, Tottenham Hotspur, AJ Auxerre

Famous for: Turning personal success into yet more collective failure. And arguing with his superiors.

Degree of difficulty: Santini had a successful managerial career in France before coming to England.

With Spurs, though, he managed just 13 games. He resigned after a purported power struggle with Frank Arnesen, the club's sporting director.

For Spurs, it was just another failed managerial experiment (more of those later).

10. Christian Gross

Who: Christian Gross

Team(s) managed: FC Wil, Grasshopper, Tottenham Hotspur, FC Basel, VfB Stuttgart, BSC Young Boys (current)

Famous for: Nearly getting Spurs relegated. And not really knowing English.

Degree of difficulty: Hilarious.

Gross, a former Swiss international (one cap!), had a rough start to his Tottenham Hotspur career. He arrived late from Heathrow for his introductory press conference in 1997. He held out a London Underground ticket and said something like: "I want this to become my ticket to dreams."

That doesn't make him a bad manager, and, heck, there are only like 37 Americans who can speak a language besides "American."

But Gross was, in fact, a bad manager.

His first match was a 6-1 loss to Chelsea, and Spurs flirted with relegation during the 1997-98 season.

9. Sammy Lee

Who: Sammy Lee

Team(s) managed: Bolton Wanderers

Famous for: Nothing.

Degree of difficulty: Inevitably low.

Sammy Lee managed Bolton for 14 games from April to October 2007 before leaving by "mutual consent." He benched captain Kevin Nolan and fan-favorite Gary Speed in his final game, a loss to Chelsea.

Another thing: Famous actors can be named Sammy. Home run kings can be named Sammy. If you're a manager, it should just be Sam.

8. Egil Olsen

Who: Egil Olsen

Team(s) managed: Wimbledon (among many, many others)

Famous for: Wearing Welly boots

Degree of difficulty: Historically high.

Olsen led Norway to first place in a World Cup qualifying group that also included the Netherlands and England. That got him a boat-load of jobs later.

One of those jobs was with Wimbledon. He led the Dons to the brink of relegation in 2000 (they completed the feat without him), causing a player to later write: "Olsen just didn't know how to get the best out of us."

Wimbledon FC, by the way, no longer exists. The historic club disintegrated, moved to a new ground and became Milton Keynes Dons after going into administration and eventually being relegated from the First Division (second tier) in 2004.

Olsen didn't do all of that. But he played a big role.

7. Ruud Gullit

Who: Ruud Gullit

Team(s) managed: Chelsea, Newcastle United, Feyenoord, LA Galaxy, Terek Grozny (current)

Famous for: Challenging Alan Shearer to a popularity contest. And losing.

Degree of difficulty: Sexily shocking.

Gullit is a proponent of "Sexy Football," which we guess is a horny man's Total Football. But there was nothing sexy about Gullit's tenure at Newcastle.

Instead, he argued with Alan Shearer and Robert Lee, benched Shearer and Duncan Ferguson and resigned five games into the 1999-2000 season.

6. Stuart Gray

Who: Stuart Gray

Team(s) managed: Southampton (and many others)

Famous for: Leading Southampton to a win over Arsenal in the final game at The Dell. And then a bunch of losing.

Degree of difficulty: Low.

Gray was in charge of the Saints' famous win over Arsenal in the final match played at their old stadium.

Other than that, Gray won just three more times in 17 games in charge.

5. Steve Wigley

Who: Steve Wigley

Team(s) managed: Aldershot Town, Southampton, Bolton Wanderers

Famous for: Being Stuart Gray Pt. Deux

Degree of difficulty: Predictably and conspiratorially low.

Wigley, like Gray, was promoted from within.

Like Gray, Wigley had a poor run as Southampton manager. He managed just one win in 14 matches before being sacked in 2004.

Conspiracy theorists like to think Wigley was only appointed manager so the club would play poorly enough to allow chairman Rupert Lowe to bring back Glenn Hoddle.

4. Paul Sturrock

Who: Paul Sturrock

Team(s) managed: Southampton (among many others)

Famous for: Not believing in himself.

Degree of difficulty: Self-fulfillingly high.

Sturrock resigned after less than six months on the job in 2004, citing "mutual consent." Word around the club was that nobody believed in his credentials.

Apparently, Sturrock was among them.

His replacement, by the way, was Steve Wigley.

3. Les Reed

Who: Les Reed

Team(s) managed: Charlton

Famous for: Being the shortest-tenured manager in Premiership history

Degree of difficulty: Astounding.

Reed got only seven matches to prove himself at Charlton. During that time, he distinguished himself well.

He gave his players Christmas Day off. And the media called him "Santa Clueless" and "Les Miserables."

2. Mike Walker

Who: Mike Walker

Team(s) managed: Colchester United, Norwich City (twice), Everton, APOEL

Famous for: Nearly getting Everton relegated

Degree of difficulty: Near-revolutionary.

Everton has remained in the top flight of English football since 1954.

In 1994, Walker very nearly ended that streak.

Everton escaped relegation with a 3-2 win over Wimbledon on the final day of the season after trailing 2-0.

The next season, however, Walker and Everton failed to win a league game until November. He was let go that month.

Under Walker's replacement, Joe Royle, Everton won the FA Cup the next spring.

1. Howard Wilkinson

Who: Howard Wilkinson

Team(s) managed: Sunderland (among many others)

Famous for: Unmatched crappitude.

Degree of difficulty: Unfathomable.

Wilkinson lost 13—count 'em 13!—of his 20 league matches with Sunderland from October 2002 to March 2003.

He was sacked after losing six straight.

The Black Cats, needless to say, were relegated even after ridding themselves of the Wilko stench.