WHICH MANAGER IS CURRENTLY ENGLAND'S BEST?

Wednesday night’s FA Cup clash at White Hart Lane pitted together the two finest English managers of their generation.

Tottenham boss Harry Redknapp and Fulham’s Roy Hodgson are the same age, but their careers have followed very different paths.

Both are clearly very different creatures. Hodgson, is, by all accounts a quiet, unassuming English gentlemen and a true student of the game. He is also someone who appears to throroughly enjoy the tactical side of football.

Redknapp is a little more brash, emotional and outspoken. He portrays a true ‘cockney geezer’ persona and relies on his man-management techniques and jovial personality to get the message across to his players.

So who do you think is more effective?

The two bosses have very different backgrounds. Hodgson entered coaching at a very young age and has carried out most of his best work abroad, becoming multi-lingual in the process.

Harry Redknapp has plied his trade closer to home, having never left the south of England. He was also far superior player to Hodgson, excelling as a winger at West Ham in the early 1970s.


So the question I want to ask this week is: Who is the currently the finest English manager in the game?

I used to think Alan Curbishley was. The former West Ham player achieved wonderful things at Charlton, but I can’t really include him in my list as he is currently, scandalously, out of work.

I have narrowed the list down to four and will suggest what I think are the various merits, and downfalls, of each contender.

The two names formerly mentioned are the elder statesmen of this elite group. But I also want to include two much younger candidates. They are Sam Allardyce and, perhaps surprisingly for some, Steve McClaren.

I believe the latter deserves a mention. A year or so ago, I wrote a blog commending his achievements at FC Twente in Holland. His side went on to finish runners up in the Eredivisie last season and lost in the Dutch Cup Final. This is not a bad first season by anyone’s standards.

This season however, he is faring even better, and Twente are well on course to win the Dutch title for the first time in their history – they currently lead by four points with six games left.

McClaren has competed with, and appears to have beaten, the two giants of Ajax and PSV Eindhoven to the championship. He has also managed to do so by playing attractive and attacking football, elevating the club from a fourth place finish two years ago to the position they are now. He deserves huge credit for re-inventing himself after the fiasco he endured as England boss.

It is now evidently clear that he was appointed national manager too early in his career, but is this his fault or is it the FA’s? Let's be honest, how many English managers would turn down the England job? Whatever the candidates' age, it might be their only chance.

It must also be remembered that the two teams that finished above McClaren’s England in qualification for Euro 2008 both had very good tournaments.

Guus Hiddink’s Russia went all the way to the last four, while Croatia, under Slaven Bilic, were themselves only thirty seconds away from a semi final berth.

Of course the critic’s will not pursue these facts, they just like to destroy a man when he is down. But McClaren has proved he is mentally strong enough to come back and for this he has to be respected.

I believe that he may be an outside contender for the now vacant Celtic job. Watch this space…


Sam Allardyce is a chronic over-achiever in my view, but deserves it for his innovative and unique ideas. He was one of the first top flight bosses to implement sports psychology into his regime at Bolton Wanderers, and has, down the years, proved himself to be an excellent manager who can compete with the very best.

I have to say, as a character, I am not his biggest fan. I feel his bullying tactics towards Rafa Benitez over the last year have, at times, made him look pathetic and vindictive. But no one can knock what he has achieved in the last decade, even Newcastle United fans.

‘Big Sam’ was not given a fair crack of the whip at Newcastle. And I am not alone in thinking that Newcastle certainly wouldn’t be in the Championship now if he was still there.

His teams may not play the most attractive football, but they are effective, and Blackburn have quietly lifted themselves into 11th place this season, mainly due to a terrific home record.

While Allardyce’s teams know how to rough opponents up, they can often play a bit too. One thing is for sure, the former Notts County boss certainly knows how to motivate his players.

I think he is particularly skilled at rekindling the careers of players who appear to be in rapid decline. And there have been several examples of this under his stewardship.

At Bolton, he certainly helped Youri Djorkaeff, Jay-Jay Okocha and Ivan Campo play on at the highest level for longer than anticipated. In addition, he also helped Kevin Davies to fulfil some of the outstanding potential he showed as a youngster, all-be-it as a rough and tumble target man.

At Blackburn, meanwhile, he has made Paul Robinson believe in himself again. He has worked wonders with the club, who were bottom of the league when he took over from Paul Ince in December 2008. And, once again, he has done this, under most people’s radars.

Most significantly though, Allardyce was a revelation at Bolton Wanderers. After gaining promotion in 2001 he took them to a Cup final and four consecutive three top eight finishes between 2004 and 2007, as well as two European campaigns. In 2004-2005 they even finished level on points with Liverpool – the Champions of Europe that year – and they only finished three points off a Champions League spot. This is a remarkable achievement for such an unfashionable club.

His successes in Lancashire have been somewhat overlooked in the aftermath of the Newcastle debacle, but he certainly, in my mind, deserves to be in this elite list.


All of which brings us back nicely to Harry Redknapp and Roy Hodgson. Only five months separate the two Londoners and both have been in management for over 25 years, so it is difficult to separate them. Both their teams play decent football, so I don’t believe a differential can be made on that basis.

Hodgson has won Championships in Sweden and Denmark and has also guided Inter Milan to a European final when they were perceived to be a very average side in 1997. The Fulham boss has also managed to guide Switzerland to a World Cup in 1994 – at that time their first finals in 50 years.

Just before he hooked up with Fulham, Hodgson also took the Finnish national team to within a win of Euro 2008 qualification, a stunning achievement for such a small foot-balling nation.

There have been low points too, including poor spell at Udinese, and, following a bright start, a disastrous second season collapse at Blackburn Rovers.

But what Hodgson has achieved at Fulham is nothing short of miraculous. He has given the supporters at Craven Cottage an un-paralleled last couple of years they could only have dreamed of when he was appointed in December 2007.

The club were staring relegation in the face for pretty much the whole campaign. But a dramatic last day win at Portsmouth (ironically managed by Harry Redknapp) and an incredible 12 points from their last five games kept them up by the skin of their teeth. Since then, the club have gone from strength to strength.

Fulham finished last season in seventh place - their highest ever top flight finish - and are currently in the Europa League quarter finals after an incredible recent second leg comeback against the mighty Juventus. They have defeated Manchester United twice and Liverpool comfortably in the last year, and in addition have reached the last eight of the FA Cup in both of the last two seasons.

But perhaps his greatest achievement at Fulham (and I am not joking here) is how he has moulded Bobby Zamora into a feared Premiership striker with a superb all round game and strike rate. For that achievement alone, he surely deserves to be top dog, doesn’t he?


But then there is Harry Redknapp. I, like many have mixed feeling about the Spurs boss. As Barry Glendenning stated on the Guardian Podcast this week, Redknapp has helped to destroy Bournemouth, Southampton and Portsmouth with his free spirited spending in the transfer market, and that has to be taken into account when you analyse the success he has had.

Portsmouth’s FA Cup win in 2008 still ranks his greatest achievement as manager, but are we now seeing the true cost of it at the Fratton Park club? What seemed such a magical achievement at the time does not seem so wonderful two years down the line does it?

He is, however, not the only big name manager to have spent a lot of money. In fact many bigger names than him have failed miserably in this respect.

Plus of course, it has to be remembered that the board does have to give the green light to a manager before they spend, so not all the blame can be placed on Redknapp’s broad shoulders.

That said, his record at Tottenham is pretty remarkable, although he has had money to spend.

If you consider that the club were rock bottom when he took over in November 2008 and now lie in a Champions League place with eight games left this season, it speaks volumes.


Redknapp also guided his sole club, West Ham United, to their only top six finish in the last 25 years. But perhaps, most potently, he deserves a huge amount of credit for the stream of top players who came through the much yielded West Ham youth system to become true global stars.

Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard, Michael Carrick, and Joe Cole are all players who began their careers under Redknapp’s tuterlege. They now have 11 Premiership winners' medals and over 250 England caps between them, and it cannot just be a coincidence that Harry Redknapp was their first boss. They are starlets from his academy and his nurturing skills cannot be overstated.

This list of stars, more than anything, has to be the reason why he just get’s the nod ahead of Hodgson on my list.

And if Redknapp can deliver the FA Cup and a Champions League place to Tottenham Hotspur over the next two months, he will certainly be classed, undeniably, as the greatest English manager of his generation.

However, if the un-thinkable happens, and Roy Hodgson delivers the Europa League trophy to Craven Cottage in May, then a re-count may well be on the cards.