Worst ever manager

[Clogger_]

Wow we have some more candidates since that poll. Rodgers did the most damage, didn't he. Clueless Cooper. Others too, with marginally less blame on those who couldn't sign or release anyone

[bovril]

2 hours ago, String fellow said:

Peter Taylor - was he really that bad? 

no, he was even worse 

[bovril]

Funny really that we got promoted back to the top flight the season after Taylor and the season after Rodgers. And certainly in 03/04 we should never have gone down. 

[Mickyblueeyes]

Taylor and by some distance. 
 

He walked into a squad who had just finished 8th with a league cup win. European football. Add to that, the most money Leicester had ever seen with the entire Heskey money (and some more on offer).

 

He had a squad of Elliott, Taggart, Lennon, Izzet, Savage and Cottee (who was still scoring the season before). Martin got Collymore playing the season before and an in form Collymore was devastatingly good. 
 

An argument he had was that it was an aging squad. Elliott, Taggart, Walsh, Cottee were coming towards the end but two things to counteract that. They were all good enough the first season and perhaps two of the 4 could’ve played a part the season after in a better assembled squad. However, he didn’t replace any with his signings in any case. 

 

He went out and blew the money. Lennon leaving half way through didn’t help but our most influential midfielder (alongside Izzet) was replaced with a young (perhaps talented but injury prone) Matt Jones. Who unfortunately was not fit enough for the role. He then tried non league Junior Lewis to replace Lennon. Lewis to replace flipping Lennon - what was that. 
 

Walsh, Lennon, Guppy and Cottee were probably high profile losses the first season but we also lost Zagorakis and Ian Marshall. Influential people in that dressing room and that influence was never replaced.
 

I think we would’ve got either one of Wanchope, Sutton or Hartson had Martin stayed. Instead we replaced Heskey with Benjamin, Akinbiyi and Richard Cresswell - none PL quality. 
 

The aging Impey was replaced by donut, Lee Marshall (for the younger ones YouTube Leicester v Liverpool to see him fall on his face - he did that a lot). And it was a selection of WTF signings. Very different to the style we were playing, the players knew etc. huge changes in fact which when you have a successful formula is a disaster. 
 

The only players I can remember being ok. Rowett and Davidson. Neither pulled up trees. 
 

. Asked Tags and Elliott to play in 4 when they had played their entire PL careers in a 3. They didn’t have the pace for a flat 4 (something Micky Adams continued with and it frustrated me, more so when he bought Dabizas and Howey (both good defenders but again lacking pace). 
 

For the time he spent big. Huge amounts for a club of our size. Made us considerably worse and left saying he did a good job. A good job ? Dickhead took over with us in 8th and Europe. Left with us bottom - 18 months later. It took us years to recover.
 

the next season (and this frustrates me) we committed to the new stadium and put filbert street up for sale - but we took a risk and Elsom backed Taylor that summer window. He brought in Scowcroft, Wise, Walker. We didn’t have the money and that was evident as soon as he left and we needed some players but went into the bargain bin. If only they had backed Martin like that.

[Dan]

Rodgers from 2022 onwards is the most damaging I can remember. Just absolutely killed us.

 

Cooper's results weren't as bad but he was more damaging to us than Van Nistelrooy or Cifuentes - although both of those were horrendous as well.

[Langston]

To say Cooper did no damage is incorrect . We don't sign Jordan Ayew and Oliver Skipp if Steve Cooper isn't manager.. He'd worked with both before, clearly recommendations.. 

[Calm]

29 minutes ago, Langston said:

To say Cooper did no damage is incorrect . We don't sign Jordan Ayew and Oliver Skipp if Steve Cooper isn't manager.. He'd worked with both before, clearly recommendations.. 

Unpopular opinion I know, but you could argue if they'd have kept the faith with Cooper, there was a decent chance of avoiding relegation. You can't sign some of his players, sack him and then moan his players can't play a different system, that's on Rudkin not the manager.

Rodgers reign probably cost the club the most, especially when you consider the squad he had, much of which walked away for very little/nothing.

[crazies]

On 30/08/2021 at 13:50, CheeseHead said:

You can tell by this thread that most FTers weren't around during the McLintock years..

Took me till page 2 to find someone who mentioned him 😂

truly a poor manager as was pleate later. 
for me Taylor destroyed us financially and on the pitch and Levine had to work with something from scrap heap challenge but was still a poor tenure 

for me it’s frank then Taylor 👍

[Blue ROI]

If the worst case scenario happens then Rodgers might well be the option.

 

Fair enough if he had disputes with board but got on with the job on hand like MON and finish 8th + compete for trophies. He could have moved on and his reputation might have been higher 

 

But to basically set fire to us showed what a cretin he truly is. And what has he gained from it? No one will touch him with a bargepole now.

[DJW1]

Of the options, I voted for McClintock, although Bryan Hamilton was just as bad. I thought Levein was a likeable bloke but we hardly won any games under him.

[Dickov22]

RVN. 

[cropstonfox]

1 hour ago, crazies said:

Took me till page 2 to find someone who mentioned him 😂

truly a poor manager as was pleate later. 
for me Taylor destroyed us financially and on the pitch and Levine had to work with something from scrap heap challenge but was still a poor tenure 

for me it’s frank then Taylor 👍

Frank McClintock ripped a reasonable team apart in a season and we went from

Mid top division to cast adrift by Christmas. Taylor took 2 seasons to undo all of Martin oneils good team and demoralised and destroyed them.

Brendan took a bit longer as he had a ride on the back of the team already in place.

Once we started signing his players it was the beginning of the end and he was poison.

So it's Rogers for me,Taylor a close second

both horrible arrogant twats.

Mclintock was just out of his depth and seemed a good sort.

 

[Clogger_]

Fwiw football was worst under Levein (with dishonourable mention for Megson's brief spell)

Edited 14 February by Clogger_

[inckley fox]

I can only really speak first hand from the Hamilton era onwards, but I love reading up on the club's history, and when you look back over our fifty managers (interims included, and caretakers excluded) there are a bunch of them who stick out for presiding over periods of decline and/or poor performance at some stage or other. To give an exhaustive list (without AI, so sorry if I miss someone out!), Gardner, Johnson, Bartlett, Ford, Linney, Orr, Lochhead, Womack, Bromilow, Mather, Duncan, Bullock, Gillies, O'Farrell, McLintock, Wallace, Hamilton, Pleat, Lee, Little, McGhee, Taylor, Bassett, Adams, Levein, Kelly, Allen, Megson, Holloway, Sousa, Ranieri, Rodgers, Cooper, Van Nistelrooy and Cifuentes - they each had some kind of serious blot on their copybooks. But you can make a case for pretty for the defence with pretty much all of them.

 

Gardner was perhaps the main player in establishing us as a club. Johnson, Womack, Bullock, O'Farrell, Wallace, Little and Adams all won promotions to go with the relegations they were involved in, and McGhee also had a big role in a promotion in 95/96. Lee did his job and kept us up. Bromilow won a wartime league. Bartlett and Kelly kept us in the second tier in tough eras. Even Pleat turned our season around in 87/88, before we stalled due to a combination of budget restrictions and his own ineptitude. Orr pushed for the title before things went south, as did Gillies, who won us our first trophy and nearly won us three more. Ranieri won us the league and thus became arguably our greatest ever manager before it started to go wrong. Rodgers won the Cup and two top five finishes, so in spite of his criminal negligence towards the end there's always going to be an argument for him being one of our best, rather than worst, managers. Even Taylor had a 13th place top flight finish, making him one of only fourteen bosses to have kept us up in the top flight for a season, and only twelve if we're talking full seasons. And many of those bosses I listed had to deal with dire circumstances, from Linney to Lochhead to Bassett to Cifuentes.

 

The point being, there are very few managers in our history who were exclusively bad. They'd be Ford, Linney, Mather, McLintock, Hamilton, Bassett, Levein, Allen, Megson, Holloway, Sousa, Van Nistelrooy, Cifuentes. Some of them weren't in charge for long enough to make a judgement, and others were dealing with a horrendous mess at the club. Some, like Ford and Sousa, were bad but in an ultimately inconsequential manner, in that we were either re-elected or stayed up. So I'd have to go for Holloway as the outright worst, because the consequences were the gravest, but even then you could say he was having to deal with Mandaric's mess, and the aftermath of Allen and Megson.

 

I don't think you can argue a serious case for Rodgers being our worst boss. What he and Taylor were, on the hand, were two of our most damaging bosses, in that they turned periods of success into an extended period of failure. Taylor being the worst on that score, because his achievements aren't a significant counterbalance.

 

So, for me, Holloway was the worst, and Taylor the most detrimental.

[Derby Blue]

I suspect most people answering this thread are far too young to remember Frank McLintock.  I can tell you it was grim, and, in my view, he was worse than Peter Taylor.

[kiddo]

Hard to choose between McLintock, Taylor and Rodgers, although Rodgers is helped by winning the FA Cup. If I had to choose one it would be Peter Taylor.

 

Despite these three muppets, I’ve never felt as disillusioned with the club as I do now.

Edited 14 February by kiddo

[HP1]

11 hours ago, Dan said:

Rodgers from 2022 onwards is the most damaging I can remember. Just absolutely killed us.

 

Cooper's results weren't as bad but he was more damaging to us than Van Nistelrooy or Cifuentes - although both of those were horrendous as well.

Rodgers tenure can be divided in to 2 (pre FA Cup and post). His signings in summer '21 absolutely destroyed us. How can you pursue a player like Vestergaard (for years by the way), sign him for £15 million, and then after looking at him in training and a couple of games ultimately decide that actually he doesn't want him or rate him.

 

That summer we spent £60 million on dross that would barely be good enough to get in the squad, let alone the team and put them on bumper contracts.

[AyewJoking]

Van nimcompoop was worse than all of them.

[DJW1]

1 hour ago, inckley fox said:

I can only really speak first hand from the Hamilton era onwards, but I love reading up on the club's history, and when you look back over our fifty managers (interims included, and caretakers excluded) there are a bunch of them who stick out for presiding over periods of decline and/or poor performance at some stage or other. To give an exhaustive list (without AI, so sorry if I miss someone out!), Gardner, Johnson, Bartlett, Ford, Linney, Orr, Lochhead, Womack, Bromilow, Mather, Duncan, Bullock, Gillies, O'Farrell, McLintock, Wallace, Hamilton, Pleat, Lee, Little, McGhee, Taylor, Bassett, Adams, Levein, Kelly, Allen, Megson, Holloway, Sousa, Ranieri, Rodgers, Cooper, Van Nistelrooy and Cifuentes - they each had some kind of serious blot on their copybooks. But you can make a case for pretty for the defence with pretty much all of them.

 

Gardner was perhaps the main player in establishing us as a club. Johnson, Womack, Bullock, O'Farrell, Wallace, Little and Adams all won promotions to go with the relegations they were involved in, and McGhee also had a big role in a promotion in 95/96. Lee did his job and kept us up. Bromilow won a wartime league. Bartlett and Kelly kept us in the second tier in tough eras. Even Pleat turned our season around in 87/88, before we stalled due to a combination of budget restrictions and his own ineptitude. Orr pushed for the title before things went south, as did Gillies, who won us our first trophy and nearly won us three more. Ranieri won us the league and thus became arguably our greatest ever manager before it started to go wrong. Rodgers won the Cup and two top five finishes, so in spite of his criminal negligence towards the end there's always going to be an argument for him being one of our best, rather than worst, managers. Even Taylor had a 13th place top flight finish, making him one of only fourteen bosses to have kept us up in the top flight for a season, and only twelve if we're talking full seasons. And many of those bosses I listed had to deal with dire circumstances, from Linney to Lochhead to Bassett to Cifuentes.

 

The point being, there are very few managers in our history who were exclusively bad. They'd be Ford, Linney, Mather, McLintock, Hamilton, Bassett, Levein, Allen, Megson, Holloway, Sousa, Van Nistelrooy, Cifuentes. Some of them weren't in charge for long enough to make a judgement, and others were dealing with a horrendous mess at the club. Some, like Ford and Sousa, were bad but in an ultimately inconsequential manner, in that we were either re-elected or stayed up. So I'd have to go for Holloway as the outright worst, because the consequences were the gravest, but even then you could say he was having to deal with Mandaric's mess, and the aftermath of Allen and Megson.

 

I don't think you can argue a serious case for Rodgers being our worst boss. What he and Taylor were, on the hand, were two of our most damaging bosses, in that they turned periods of success into an extended period of failure. Taylor being the worst on that score, because his achievements aren't a significant counterbalance.

 

So, for me, Holloway was the worst, and Taylor the most detrimental.

In between Wallace and Hamilton was Gordon Milne. He got promotion in his first seAson and kept us for 3 years. He wasn't really popular with the fans, probably for being ex Cov and for swapping Melrose for English ☹️

[CrazyKopCorner]

Rodgers from 2022 onwards and Taylor are a close run thing. 

 

I think the fall and the sheer mardy arseness of Rodgers I'd give it to him as he destroyed us in such a short period of time - to get relegated with Maddison, Barnes,  Tielemans, Vardy, KDH etc in the team takes some ****ing doing 

 

 

[inckley fox]

16 minutes ago, DJW1 said:

In between Wallace and Hamilton was Gordon Milne. He got promotion in his first seAson and kept us for 3 years. He wasn't really popular with the fans, probably for being ex Cov and for swapping Melrose for English ☹️

Oh yeah, of course. I was only listing the managers who'd had a spell of sustained decline during their reign.

 

Milne was a good boss, but not a great recruiter. The narrative was always that he benefited from a young squad, assembled from youth players and budget acquisitions by Wallace, and underachieved with it. This was always a very questionable stance, coloured by fans who never wanted Milne to succeed from the off. But from the perspective of someone who was too young to go to many games under Milne (admittedly) - on paper it looks like he was the better manager.

[sdb]

5 hours ago, Dickov22 said:

RVN. 

Came here to say the same. How is he not even on the list?!! Record breaking levels of shite.

[Guy]

2 hours ago, inckley fox said:

I can only really speak first hand from the Hamilton era onwards, but I love reading up on the club's history, and when you look back over our fifty managers (interims included, and caretakers excluded) there are a bunch of them who stick out for presiding over periods of decline and/or poor performance at some stage or other. To give an exhaustive list (without AI, so sorry if I miss someone out!), Gardner, Johnson, Bartlett, Ford, Linney, Orr, Lochhead, Womack, Bromilow, Mather, Duncan, Bullock, Gillies, O'Farrell, McLintock, Wallace, Hamilton, Pleat, Lee, Little, McGhee, Taylor, Bassett, Adams, Levein, Kelly, Allen, Megson, Holloway, Sousa, Ranieri, Rodgers, Cooper, Van Nistelrooy and Cifuentes - they each had some kind of serious blot on their copybooks. But you can make a case for pretty for the defence with pretty much all of them.

 

Gardner was perhaps the main player in establishing us as a club. Johnson, Womack, Bullock, O'Farrell, Wallace, Little and Adams all won promotions to go with the relegations they were involved in, and McGhee also had a big role in a promotion in 95/96. Lee did his job and kept us up. Bromilow won a wartime league. Bartlett and Kelly kept us in the second tier in tough eras. Even Pleat turned our season around in 87/88, before we stalled due to a combination of budget restrictions and his own ineptitude. Orr pushed for the title before things went south, as did Gillies, who won us our first trophy and nearly won us three more. Ranieri won us the league and thus became arguably our greatest ever manager before it started to go wrong. Rodgers won the Cup and two top five finishes, so in spite of his criminal negligence towards the end there's always going to be an argument for him being one of our best, rather than worst, managers. Even Taylor had a 13th place top flight finish, making him one of only fourteen bosses to have kept us up in the top flight for a season, and only twelve if we're talking full seasons. And many of those bosses I listed had to deal with dire circumstances, from Linney to Lochhead to Bassett to Cifuentes.

 

The point being, there are very few managers in our history who were exclusively bad. They'd be Ford, Linney, Mather, McLintock, Hamilton, Bassett, Levein, Allen, Megson, Holloway, Sousa, Van Nistelrooy, Cifuentes. Some of them weren't in charge for long enough to make a judgement, and others were dealing with a horrendous mess at the club. Some, like Ford and Sousa, were bad but in an ultimately inconsequential manner, in that we were either re-elected or stayed up. So I'd have to go for Holloway as the outright worst, because the consequences were the gravest, but even then you could say he was having to deal with Mandaric's mess, and the aftermath of Allen and Megson.

 

I don't think you can argue a serious case for Rodgers being our worst boss. What he and Taylor were, on the hand, were two of our most damaging bosses, in that they turned periods of success into an extended period of failure. Taylor being the worst on that score, because his achievements aren't a significant counterbalance.

 

So, for me, Holloway was the worst, and Taylor the most detrimental.

I don't know if you meant to (or if they perhaps didn't "tie in" with your "all of them had flaws" thought of all the listed managers : but as well as Gordon Milne you missed out Martin O'Neill and Puel from the list! 

Edited 14 February by Guy

[Guy]

3 minutes ago, sdb said:

Came here to say the same. How is he not even on the list?!! Record breaking levels of shite.

I fell into that trap too yesterday by expressing as much re RVN - then had it pointed out to me that the poll was originally done 5 years ago!! 

[Joe90]

Gotta Be Peter Taylor and RVN