Nobody's perfect - except Pat Rice, of course
Important note: In the interests of fairness we’ve imposed a 20-game minimum. That being said, we do have to give – in true pundit style – ‘all credit’ to the only manager in Premier League history with a perfect 100% win record. Yes, it’s the former Robin to Arsene Wenger’s Batman – Pat Rice! The Arsenal legend was very briefly in charge of the first team on a caretaker basis before Wenger took over in 1996 and put the might of Sheffield Wednesday, Middlesbrough and Sunderland to the sword, compiling a record of three wins from three games.
Good show, Pat. Now, onto the countdown.
20. Brendan Rodgers
Win percentage: 46.9% (160 games)Clubs: Swansea, Liverpool
Outstanding news: Brendan is in. You might be surprised to learn that not all of his victories came in that so-near-yet-so-far Liverpool season of 2013/14 – but 75 Premier League wins in one season isn’t mathematically possible.
In fact, Rodgers can be proud to appear here. Many of those to appear on this prestigious list have spent their careers solely managing Premier League super-clubs but Rodgers also spent a season with top-flight newcomers Swansea City in 2011/12. So he’s shown great character to feature, edging another former Liverpool boss – Gerard Houllier – into 21st.
19. Gianluca Vialli
Win percentage: 47.9% (94 games)
Club: Chelsea
The amiable Italian was a real success back in the pre-Abramovich era following his appointment as player-manager following the sacking of Ruud Gullit. The first Italian to manage in the Premier League led the Blues to League Cup and Cup Winners’ Cup glory in his first year, adding an FA Cup in the 1999/2000 season. In 1998/99 he had led Chelsea to a third-place league finish – a genuine achievement before the Russian oligarch, after which coming third became a sackable offence.
18. Roy Evans
Win percentage: 48.3% (172 games)
Club: Liverpool
More Scouse than a Liver Bird on the Mersey ferry humming Love Me Do, boot-room boy Roy was part of the Anfield furniture. He played for the Reds, coached them throughout their golden era in the 1970s and 80s and worked under no fewer than five different managers – Shankly, Paisley, Fagan, Dalglish and Souness.
He had been at the club in one role or another for more than 30 years when he took the top job following the sacking of Souness in 1994. When he ascended to the Anfield throne, Liverpool were in mid-table and had just been dumped out of the FA Cup by Bristol City. In his four seasons as boss, he took the Reds to fourth, third, fourth and a final third. All this while playing aesthetically pleasing football with the likes of Robbie Fowler and Steve McManaman in attack.
17. Kenny Dalglish
Win percentage: 48.3% (238 games)
Clubs: Blackburn, Newcastle, Liverpool
It’s incredible that King Kenny makes this list when you consider the serious disadvantage he’s facing (we don’t even mean managing Newcastle). As we’re only counting post-1992, Premier League-era stats, his first spell in charge of Liverpool doesn’t count – and Dalglish won three top-tier titles with the Reds between 1985 and 1991.
He took Blackburn to another one in 1995, becoming just the fourth manager to win England’s top division with two different clubs, before stints with Newcastle and that second spell in charge of Liverpool.
16. Claudio Ranieri
Win percentage: 49.8% (209 games)
Clubs: Chelsea, Leicester
Dilly ding, dilly bloody dong. Ranieri left Chelsea in 2004 with a good win percentage under his belt then returned to the Premier League over a decade later having been boss of Valencia, Juventus, Inter, Monaco and, most recently, as Greek national team manager where he was an unmitigated disaster. When he turned up in the East Midlands in 2015, nobody expected much. Leicester were odd-on favourites for relegation. The affable Italian had other ideas, though. There, he naturally upped his win percentage to 60% in the season his Foxes side claimed the league title – all thanks to pizza promises and bell noises.
Season two didn’t go to plan, but let’s be honest: that’s not what anybody really remembers now.
15. Mauricio Pochettino
Win percentage: 50% (194 games)
Clubs: Southampton, Tottenham
Poch strikes us as a very meticulous, precise man, so he’ll be delighted when we telephone him to pass on the news that he’s won precisely half of his 194 Premier League games.
A work in progress, the Argentinian is consistently bettering his ratio (last year’s 26 league wins was Tottenham’s highest number of victories since they won the Double in the 1960/61 season), so it won’t be long before he’s raised it higher still – that is, of course, if Daniel Levy and the powers that be at Spurs can keep him out of the grasp of Europe’s superclubs, who are sure to come sniffing around.
14. Louis van Gaal
Win percentage: 51.3% (76 games)
Club: Manchester United
While making this top 20 is no mean feat, winning more than 50% of your games in the Premier League means you get to rub shoulders with the truly elite managers to lead teams in the top division in England. The first name on our list to have done that is…. Louis van Gaal. You what?
An example of how managing a very big club for a relatively short spell can add a little gloss to your stats, Van Gaal did well in his first season to take Manchester United to fourth – up from the previous season’s seventh. However, he played such a constipated style of football that we can barely recall any of his 39 league wins. Oh well.
13. Rafael Benitez
Win percentage: 51.7% (290 games)
Clubs: Liverpool, Chelsea, Newcastle
One of the best and most successful bosses not to have won the Premier League, Benitez still makes this list despite managing a (relatively) austerity Liverpool and a (totally) austerity Newcastle, with a short stint as Chelsea’s temporary boss between the two.
Having won the Champions League at Liverpool, the Europa League with both Chelsea and Valencia and a couple of league titles with El Che, the Premier League is one trophy to elude Benitez. That won’t change while his strikeforce consists of Joselu and a scarecrow made out of string and old Sports Direct bags, but respect for keeping his win ratio above 50% nonetheless.
12. Andre Villas-Boas
Win percentage: 51.9% (81 games)
Clubs: Chelsea, Tottenham
Another one off the FC Porto conveyer belt of coaches, it would be easy to dismiss Villas-Boas as a Premier League flop but clearly the Portuguese had his moments. It didn’t quite work out for him at Chelsea where he didn’t see the end of his first season at the Bridge, but he took Spurs to a then-highest-ever Premier League points total of 72 in 2012/13, which goes a long way to explaining his inclusion on this list.
Admittedly it went south afterwards, not helped by Gareth Bale’s departure that summer. A lot of Villas-Boas’s wins came via the Welshman thwacking in a wondergoal every game – a hard strategy to replicate when Bale wasn’t actually there, but Roberto Soldado definitely was.
11. Jurgen Klopp
Win percentage: 52.1% (96 games)
Club: Liverpool
The former Borussia Dortmund boss is as well known for his infectious smile as he is his special brand of heavy metal football. While the former has won him many fans, it’s the latter that wins matches – and Kloppo is just one win away from making it 50 in the Premier League, which would make him the quickest Liverpool manager to do so since Sky Sports invented football in 1992.
Every top club has fallen to his swashbuckling bunch at one time or another, although Liverpool fans probably wish they’d stop dropping points in matches they really should see out.
10. Guus Hiddink
Win percentage: 52.9% (34 games)
Club: Chelsea
The Dutchman has had some of football’s most coveted managerial jobs – Real Madrid, for starters – but makes this list thanks to his fire fighting abilities. Hiddink has twice come in to steady the ship at Chelsea and stayed for a fun time, if not a long time. Roman Abramovich first turned to the experience of Hiddink after ‘Big Phil’ Scolari was sent packing in 2009 and for a second spell when Jose Mourinho was diverted from his heroic attempt to relegate Chelsea in 2015.
Both times things improved dramatically under his steady guidance and he left first time round with an FA Cup to show for his efforts.
9. Luiz Felipe Scolari
Win percentage: 56% (25 games)
Club: Chelsea
Not the first on the list to be something of a surprise – and proof that a win percentage only tells you so much when it comes to judging a manager’s overall performance. Big Phil got off to a great start when he took over at Chelsea in 2008 following five years in charge of the Portuguese national team.
He coached the Blues to 10 wins from 13 Premier League matches as they reached the summit of the table in mid-November, but won just four of the next 12 matches leading to the World Cup winner being shown the door by Roman Abramovich in February 2009.
8. Arsene Wenger
Win percentage: 57.6% (816 games)
Club: Arsenal
A fine ratio for the three-time Premier League winner. However, it won’t come as a huge surprise to anyone who follows the Gunners that his win percentage has been sliding in the wrong direction over the last couple of years, as his incredible record of never having finished lower than fourth place in the Premier League table came to a halt last season.
His most prized statistic – the ‘0’ in the losses column his Arsenal side achieved in the 2003/04 ‘Invincible’ season – can’t be taken away from him, but catching up with all-time Premier League win record holder Sir Alex Ferguson is looking increasingly unlikely. The Frenchman has 470 to his name with Fergie some way ahead on 528.
7. Manuel Pellegrini
Win percentage: 61.4% (114 games)
Club: Manchester City
Pellegrini spent three seasons in charge of a fiscally dominant Manchester City side, winning the Premier League title in his first campaign with the club. Things tailed off significantly with second- and fourth-placed finishes before the charming Chilean was chased off to China as his time in England ended unedifyingly, with City impatiently waiting for Pep Guardiola.
Respected rather than admired, Pellegrini enjoyed a high win percentage which may be as reflective of City's status as it is of his own merits as a manager; his time in the Premier League came when the gap between the haves and have-nots had never been wider.
6. Roberto Mancini
Win percentage: 61.7% (133 games)
Club: Manchester City
Fittingly ‘Mancio’ finds himself a notch above fellow City alumnus Manuel Pellegrini, with whom he shares a fair bit in common (one league title in three full seasons in the blue half of Manchester).
Their records are similar, but it’s worth bearing in mind that Mancini had to drag City up to his level whereas Pellegrini has a much better and more balanced squad at the club when he arrived. Mancini will forever be remembered as the guy who delivered City's first top-tier title in a generation and in the most incredible fashion imaginable – and he even managed to get Mario Balotelli playing well for a bit.
5. Carlo Ancelotti
Win percentage: 63.2% (76 games)
Club: Chelsea
Ancelotti’s two seasons in the Premier League were too few in retrospect and a perfect example of Chelsea in their magnificent, hiring/firing pomp. Having delivered a league and FA Cup double in his first season, the Italian guided the Blues to second in the league in his second year, behind Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United. Who wouldn’t raise an eyebrow at such stratospheric standards?
Ancelotti’s win percentage puts him in the top five of all time, but Roman Abramovich gave him the boot for not impressing enough in the Champions League. Considering he won it twice as a player with Milan and then coached the Rossoneri to another couple before his stint at the Bridge – and delivering La Decima afterwards with Madrid – he may have been worth another season.
4. Jose Mourinho
Win percentage: 63.4% (278 games)
Clubs: Chelsea, Manchester United
A special win percentage. It was a ridiculously high 73.3% after 120 matches following his first spell at Chelsea where he won two of his three Premier League titles. It’s taken a bit of a battering since then, particularly in that weird season where Claudio Ranieri’s relegation favourites Leicester won the title and title favourites Chelsea were loitering around the relegation zone.
Mourinho has just about managed to get things back on track at Manchester United, and he’s one of only two managers to maintain a win rate of over 60% having taken charge of more than 200 Premier League matches. No prizes for guessing who the other one is.
3. Sir Alex Ferguson
Win percentage: 65.2% (810 games)
Club: Manchester United
Hold fire; give us a moment to explain. Most would rank the tetchy old hairdryer-wielder as the most successful Premier League manager ever, and who could blame them? He’s won 13 of them after all. So how, then, can he only rank third on this list? Well, one reason is the fluctuations of managing for 20+ years – there are bound to be dips (even if they are followed by more success).
There’s also the increasing, modern gap between a handful of clubs and the rest. Back in 1999, Fergie’s treble-winners claimed the league with 'only' 79 points. That would be good enough to sneak fourth spot last season. So managers of the 1990s and early 2000s won the league with a much lower win percentage, hence the bias towards current day managers on this list. Speaking of which…
=1. Antonio Conte
Win percentage: 70.3% (64 games)
Club: Chelsea
Such is the short-termism of modern football that the man with the joint-highest win ratio in the history of the Premier League is also said to be facing the axe. Conte’s remarkable 70% owes much to the utterly brilliant first season where his Chelsea side went on a 13-match winning run as they claimed the title in style.
It’s taken a dip since then – he finished that first season with a stunning 79.5% win ratio – but for whatever reason he’s had a face like thunder since the summer. He’s at least kept up the Chelsea modus operandi of glory one year and implosion the next. Saying that, he still holds the highest win ratio of any Blues boss and joint highest in Premier League history.
=1. Pep Guardiola
Win percentage: 70.3% (64 games)
Club: Manchester City
Guardiola and Conte share top spot, then – not something his Manchester City side will have to face this season, you suspect. The Citizens are on course to break just about every record you can think of, including the 95-point record set by Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea back in the 2004/05 season.
Given City’s sensational form so far this term, it’s not much of a surprise that the former Barcelona and Bayern boss is right at the top of this list, having dramatically improved on the 60.5% ratio from his debut campaign in Manchester.
Critics will point to the £438m spent during his short reign to improve a richly gifted squad, but at least they’re bulldozering the league in style with a team that’s just getting better. Expect this sky-high ratio to go upwards still.
