Since its first iteration in 1992, the Premier League has not been the easiest place for the best in management to showcase their ability, and it is one of the most cutthroat leagues in which to ply your trade.
Only a select few managers have ever tasted success in the world’s most illustrious domestic league, but clinching the Holy Grail will always stand out on a CV.
Across over three decades of Premier League football, numerous men have gone down in folklore for their achievements in the division, and this list is here to celebrate them.
Ahead of the start of the new Premier League season, Sports Mole counts down the 10 greatest managers the league has ever seen.
Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini with the Premier League trophy in 2012
Just sneaking onto the list ahead of his Italian compatriot Antonio Conte is the man who delivered Manchester City’s first Premier League crown, Roberto Mancini.
Replacing Mark Hughes in 2009, Mancini guided City to the FA Cup in his second season in charge, which at the time ended a 35-year wait without any major silverware for the club, but it was in the Premier League where he will be fondly remembered.
Mancini was the man in charge when Sergio Aguero scored the league’s most famous goal in the dying moments against Queens Park Rangers that snatched the title away from rivals Manchester United on the final day, and even though that remains his only league win, the Italian left City with a 62% win ratio - one of the highest in Premier League history.
Harry Redknapp on August 30, 2022
Despite never clinching a Premier League title across a two-decade spell in the top flight, Redknapp remains one of the best to manage in it, showing excellent longevity and adaptability to both battle at the top and the bottom.
Redknapp established West Ham as a top-flight club, nurturing young talents such as Frank Lampard, Joe Cole and Michael Carrick, and taking the club into Europe, before doing the same with Portsmouth in his second spell in the late-2000s.
However, Redknapp’s most notable achievement was breaking into the watertight top four that very rarely got breached in the Premier League with Tottenham Hotspur in 2009-10, becoming just the second man to win Manager of the Season without winning the title, before leading them to fourth place again two years later.
Carlo Ancelotti celebrates winning the Premier League with Chelsea in 2010
While Ancelotti only spent three full seasons in the Premier League, the results he accomplished mean there must be a place for him in this list.
Now regarded again as one of the greatest managers of all time, Ancelotti’s stock was high when he joined Chelsea in 2009 after eight illustrious years at AC Milan, and he won the Premier League title in his first season, breaking the record for goals in a single season (103).
However, after coming second the following season, Roman Abramovich harshly sacked Ancelotti, and it would be eight years until the Italian returned, taking over at Everton, where he led the Toffees to a top-half finish in his only full season, a feat that has not been repeated in any of their following four seasons.
Leicester City manager Claudio Ranieri and goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel with the Premier League trophy in 2016
Next up is the man who masterminded the greatest story in Premier League history, and achieved a feat that may never be seen again in English top-flight history.
The bookies gave little old Leicester City odds of 5000/1 to win the title when Ranieri was appointed ahead of the 2015-16 season, just after narrowly avoiding the drop on their return to the top flight, but the Italian and his squad made a mockery of those odds, enjoying a fairytale run to the title.
That was not Ranieri’s first taste of English football though, because he was in charge when Chelsea went through the transition into the Abramovich era, finishing second behind the invincible Arsenal side in 03-04, a year after taking the club into the Champions League for just the second time.
David Moyes pictured on May 12, 2013
In sixth is the highest-ranked manager never to win the title, but it would be harsh to judge Moyes’s career on that alone, considering he has taken charge of 716 matches and counting, across almost two-and-a-half decades managing at the very top.
Everton were the club who gave Moyes his big break at the top level, and he stayed for 11 years, consistently making the club European challengers, while also breaching the top four in 2004-05, so it was no surprise that Manchester United eventually came calling, and made him Sir Alex Ferguson’s replacement.
While that year at Old Trafford was an unmitigated disaster, it is far from the worst Man United season post-Fergie, and Moyes has gone on to achieve great things with West Ham, taking them into Europe three times and delivering silverware, before an emotional return to Everton in their final season at Goodison Park, steering them away from relegation trouble instantly.
Jurgen Klopp as Liverpool manager on March 15, 2023
It is a straightforward task picking the best five Premier League managers of all time, but what is more difficult is putting them in order, and there are arguments in favour of Klopp mixing it with the very best, but he ranks fifth here.
The German is without doubt the most important manager of Liverpool since the days of Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley, dragging them from mid-table mediocrity and near-misses to perennial winners, finally getting them over the line to win their first Premier League title in 2020.
Klopp also put together staggeringly strong seasons in both 2018-19 and 2021-22, amassing close to 100 points in both, but they fell agonisingly short of Man City, and even though the charismatic German left in 2024, a lot of credit has gone to him regarding the title the club won in 2024-25 under Arne Slot.
Jose Mourinho and Chelsea celebrate winning the Premier League title in 2005
A man hated, adored but never ignored, Mourinho is a fan favourite no matter where he has managed, but few fanbases love him as much as Chelsea fans do, thanks to two hugely successful spells in West London.
As the fresh-faced youngster who disrupted Man United and Arsenal’s dominance in the mid-2000s, Mourinho won back-to-back titles in his first two years at Stamford Bridge, before returning a decade later and repeating the feat, winning the league in 2014-15, after conquering Europe at Inter Milan.
Mourinho’s spells at Chelsea were far from lengthy though, nor were his escapades with Man United and Tottenham Hotspur, where he spent two years each, securing the former's joint-best PL finish in the post-Fergie era, coming second behind Man City’s centurions in 2017-18.
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger in 2016.
Arguably no manager has had more of a profound impact on English football in the modern era than Wenger, who not only transformed the way things were done at Arsenal, but in the country as a whole.
After coming in as a relative unknown, Wenger ended up spending 22 years in charge of Arsenal, overhauling fitness standards and nutrition, with a measured, clever approach to scouting and tactics, and was central to the rivalry with Man United and Alex Ferguson in the late-90s and early-00s.
Wenger became the first foreign manager to win the domestic double in England in 1998, before repeating the feat in 2002, but Le Professeur’s most notable achievement was going the entire 2003-04 season unbeaten, making Arsenal the first English club to do so in 115 years, and something no club has managed to replicate since.
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola celebrates with the Premier League trophy on May 19, 2024
For decades, it was Ferguson with Man United and Wenger with Arsenal, and no other managers could claim to have had as big of an impact at one English club than those two, but Guardiola has come in at Man City and changed all of that over the past decade.
No club in the Premier League era has enjoyed dominance like it over such a spell, as City became the first club in English football history to win four titles in a row, and even though Guardiola was unable to make it five in the 2024-25 campaign, he has still won six titles in his nine seasons at the helm.
Numerous caveats accompany those six titles too, as well as they fact they went four in a row, such as the treble that came in 2022-23, and the fact they became the first club to amass 100 points in a top-flight season in 2017-18.
1: Sir Alex Ferguson
Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson with the Premier League trophy in 2011
Topping the list though, is the manager who has won more professional trophies than any other manager in football history, including a whopping 13 Premier League titles; Man United legend Ferguson.
Ferguson was the first manager to win three straight English titles, and he managed that on two occasions, between 1998 and 2001, as well as 2006 and 2009, maintaining similarly high levels across 26 years in charge of Man United, making him the club longest-serving manager by some distance.
One only has to look at the state the Red Devils have been in ever since he retired back in 2013 to know just how much of an impact and a presence he had at the club across all levels, because they are yet to add to their tally of 20 titles since the Scot called time on his career.
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