ASIDE from Mikel Arteta, no other current Premier League manager has won the title, in fact, the Arsenal boss is also the only serving coach to have won the FA Cup. With the likes of Jürgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola now gone, the rest of the field are either on their way up or have yet to manage a club with the habit of regular success. Arteta became the 62nd manager to lead a club to the English title and only the second from Spain.
Interestingly, the Premier manager with the longest list of silverware on his CV is also from Spain; Unai Emery, like Arteta a Basque, has won 10 major trophies in his career, but only one league championship when he was Paris Saint-Germain’s coach. Emery added another Europa League title to his haul last season with Aston Villa.
Some of the Premier’s big guns go into 2026-27 with managers who have yet to win much in the game. The new coaches at Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur have five trophies between them. Chelsea, the other “bix six” club, have Xabi Alonso who won the German double with Bayer Leverkusen in 2024-25.
Should these clubs be concerned about modest track records? History has shown us that being successful in a weaker league than the Premier is no guarantee a manager will maintain momentum when they step-up. Indeed, Ruben Amorim was a good example of that at Manchester United and one can only hope that his stint at Old Trafford will not scar his career for too long. Timing is of paramount importance when it comes to selecting an emerging talent. Michael Carrick made an impressive impact when he was installed after Amorim’s departure, but United will be hoping that he does not become Solskjaer mark two.
Arsenal are the only member of the elite half dozen who will not go into the 2026-27 season with a new full-time coach. Admittedly, Tottenham’s Roberto de Zerbi was appointed in the last few weeks of 2025-26, so this will be his first full season. Bournemouth, Crystal Palace, Fulham and Ipswich Town will also be bedding-in new managers. Of those that have gone, Palace may deeply regret the departure of Oliver Glasner, who led the club to the first trophies in their long history.
Glasner may well prove to become one of the new elite of football managers. The old guard have aged while working through the A-Z of mighty clubs and most no longer feature on lists of potential employees. It was quite remarkable that José Mourinho was re-hired at Real Madrid when it looked as though he was slipping down the ladder, although his Benfica side went through the Portuguese Primeira campaign unbeaten. Antonio Conte is in the market again after departing Napoli, Max Allegri was sacked by AC Milan, and of course, Guardiola is now out of a job after leaving Manchester City.
It is becoming clearer by the season that clubs’ threshold of boredom is being eroded all the time. In 2025-26, Nottingham Forest had four different managers while Chelsea sacked two and ran to the end with a member of their backroom before finding Alonso. Tottenham sacked Ange Postecoglou and Igor Tudor before settling on De Zerbi. Stability is one of the keys to success and so many clubs appeared to be out-of-sorts. Elsewhere, sackings and exists by “mutual consent” were commonplace, but Premier League clubs are becoming unrealistic in their expectations. Furthermore, big-ticket managers are becoming a disappearing breed, so clubs are having to become more and more inventive in selecting a new man.
A number of managers will go into 2026-27 knowing they are a couple of defeats away from having that “awkward conversation”. Who are the most vulnerable and who will be given the luxury of time to get it right?
Game of the People was founded in 2012 and is ranked among the 100 best football websites by various sources. The site consistently wins awards for its work, across a broad range of subjects. [View all posts by Neil Fredrik Jensen](https://gameofthepeople.com/author/georgefjord/)