Who was our worst manager and why?

[Kp1984]

In my lifetime coooer and nistleroy with a joint effort of shit. But other then that I couldn’t stand puel he sucked the life out of watching us 

[Kp1984]

Just now, Kp1984 said:

In my lifetime coooer and nistleroy with a joint effort of shit. But other then that I couldn’t stand puel he sucked the life out of watching us 

Cooper 

[Jon the Hat]

A slightly different take, people cannot help their incompetence - that is on the board who hired them.

 

Martin O'Neill for leaving us when he did.  Oh what might have been.

Rodgers for not quitting when the board told him there was no money, and instead sending us down.

[Bergen fox]

Peter Taylor destroyed the club. 

[Jon the Hat]

17 minutes ago, Bergen fox said:

Peter Taylor destroyed the club. 

Our two greatest successes came since his time though, so of course the club continues.

[Trav Le Bleu]

The problem with saying RVN or Holloway is that, whilst neither was any good, RVN in particular, both were already on a hiding to nothing with the situation they walked into.

 

I think it has to be McLintock or Taylor, though I'm too young to make too educated a comment on the former.

[Clogger_]

Cooper

[PAULCFC]

Rodgers in his last year for putting himself before the team and supporters.......i've seen Pleat,RVN,Holloway etc,but what Rodgers did was unforgivable.

[foxfanazer]

It's Taylor or RVN but my least favourite is Rodgers by a distance. Just a horrible, smarmy cvnt

Edited 5 September 2025 by foxfanazer

[Guppys Love Child]

6 hours ago, The Horse's Mouth said:

People saying rodgers are genuinely mental  . I started in the levein era, for me it’s only two candidates in Ruud and Holloway. And I think ruud edges it in the fact that the season was over within a month despite taken over in a reasonably strong position.

I think you are missing the point on why they are choosing Rodgers.. it's not just his record on the pitch be it good or bad, it's just him. 

He is one of the architects IMO of our current plight. Yes Top and the Board are to blame also, but as someone else posted he has blood on his hands.

 

I started supporting the club during Pleat's tenure and have witnessed good and bad management. Taylor was horrendous and nearly put us out of business, but it was done out of incompetence and being out of his depth, no malice.  Rodgers was a sabotage, using dirty, under hand blame shifting tactics in the pursuit of a lucrative pay off. If he had actually done his job I think we would have got the results to have stayed up..many others have said similar and that the team was too good to go down....I agree on that front.

[ithuriel]

3 hours ago, Jon the Hat said:

Our two greatest successes came since his time though, so of course the club continues.

The club was bailed out by ex players etc., and we lucked out in getting Vichai to invest before our successes.

Even when we were relatively sound again after a decade of struggle before KP came in we were renting a stadium in need of repair, still remember a briefing before a game when I did some stewarding that one of the scoreboards was faulty but the money was not there to repair it.

Taylor and the Chairman at the time really ploughed us into the mire.

Edited 5 September 2025 by ithuriel

[The Horse's Mouth]

37 minutes ago, Guppys Love Child said:

I think you are missing the point on why they are choosing Rodgers.. it's not just his record on the pitch be it good or bad, it's just him. 

He is one of the architects IMO of our current plight. Yes Top and the Board are to blame also, but as someone else posted he has blood on his hands.

 

I started supporting the club during Pleat's tenure and have witnessed good and bad management. Taylor was horrendous and nearly put us out of business, but it was done out of incompetence and being out of his depth, no malice.  Rodgers was a sabotage, using dirty, under hand blame shifting tactics in the pursuit of a lucrative pay off. If he had actually done his job I think we would have got the results to have stayed up..many others have said similar and that the team was too good to go down....I agree on that front.

I understand the point it’s just moronic though, he achieved two top 5 finishes and an fa cup. And you’re talking about him amongst the likes of Holloway for partaking in our relegation season. That flawed logic you’re using could be used to argue Brian clough is forests worst manager 

[dmayne7]

21 minutes ago, The Horse's Mouth said:

I understand the point it’s just moronic though, he achieved two top 5 finishes and an fa cup. And you’re talking about him amongst the likes of Holloway for partaking in our relegation season. That flawed logic you’re using could be used to argue Brian clough is forests worst manager 

I said this already and have done for a while but you almost have to split it in half in terms of his time here. First half, he is arguably the best we've had. Second half, he without doubt the worst, or rather, it's the biggest underperformance and destruction of the club from a manager.

 

You use Clough as an example but he left Forest in a better place than he found them, or at least no worse. And that was after an extremely long time when they had continued success.

[The Horse's Mouth]

17 minutes ago, dmayne7 said:

I said this already and have done for a while but you almost have to split it in half in terms of his time here. First half, he is arguably the best we've had. Second half, he without doubt the worst, or rather, it's the biggest underperformance and destruction of the club from a manager.

 

You use Clough as an example but he left Forest in a better place than he found them, or at least no worse. And that was after an extremely long time when they had continued success.

You don’t because that’s simply disingenuous, you have to take the good with the bad which is why his 18 months has countered weighted the conversation of him being amongst the niges, gillies, oneill .etc. and also why he’s not in the camp of a Holloway who took us to our lowest position in our clubs history 

 

I think people put a lot of the destruction too much on him as well and I say that as someone who was an ardent rodgers outer for a long time. the way the club is run hasn’t changed since he left, instead of Bertrand on 70k we’d putting coady on 100k.  The financial mismanagement and the recruitment is largely part of the downfall, you can talk about how shit his tactics were towards the end which I would concur with, but at the end of the day our back line was ward faes and amartey 

 

I wasn’t using it as a direct example, it’s just a case of how the logic is flawed. You have to take everything together to judge an overall performance. 

[JonnyBoy]

21 hours ago, teblin said:

For me it’s Taylor. RVN was bad but Taylor bought lots of crap players too. RVN didn’t do that. 

How is anything worse than 8 straight home losses and not scoring a goal? Surely has to be RVN

[CUJimmy]

Taylor took over a strong, settled team that had won the League Cup in 2000.  For the first few months of the season we looked good (briefly being top of the table) then in the New Year we had the debacle against Wycombe and 8 consecutive losses in the league promoting an alarming slide down the table only halted by the end of the season.  Relegation the following year was the inevitable result despite sacking Taylor when poor results continued for the first couple of months.

 

Daka, Ayew and Soumare are pretty bad but I would take any of them in a heartbeat over Akinbiyi, Benjamin and Junior Lewis. The difference being Taylor actively scouted those players whereas RVN had to work with what he was given.

 

Make no mistake, last season was shockingly bad but RVN came with no pedigree at this level and was clearly out of his depth.  Taylor came with a strong history at club and international level but ripped the guts out of a successful team.

 

Nearly 60 years following this club and for me Peter Taylor was the worst.

[DJW1]

9 hours ago, Heathrow fox said:

I think Milne signed Sealy?Hamilton gets away without mention in these worst ever manager threads because hardly anyone was there to witness it.Awful  manager.Broke the transfer record twice btw.

Perhaps the only good thing about Hamilton is that he signed Steve Walsh

[jayfox26]

This topic has shown that there are very few managers that seem well liked amongst our fan base for varying reasons. The only former managers (from my lifetime) that seem liked by most are O'Neill, Pearson and Ranieri. 

 

I don't think anyone could dislike Micky Adams or Shakespeare either to be fair, but neither had the same success that previous 3 did. 

[Heart-Shaped Fox]

Rvn. 

 

Yes the squad wasn't great and I think he was sold some false promises. But I'm utterly convinced if any of us were in charge we'd have the team scoring at least one goal in 9 home games. Utter dross he was

[Gamble92]

11 minutes ago, jayfox26 said:

This topic has shown that there are very few managers that seem well liked amongst our fan base for varying reasons. The only former managers (from my lifetime) that seem liked by most are O'Neill, Pearson and Ranieri. 

 

I don't think anyone could dislike Micky Adams or Shakespeare either to be fair, but neither had the same success that previous 3 did. 

Well Shakespeare is as well regarded as Pearson and Ranieri for what he did as no.2

 

Micky Adams deserves massive credit for getting us promoted in the administration season. 

[whoareyaaa]

10 hours ago, The Horse's Mouth said:

People saying rodgers are genuinely mental  . I started in the levein era, for me it’s only two candidates in Ruud and Holloway. And I think ruud edges it in the fact that the season was over within a month despite taken over in a reasonably strong position.

Rvn took overs Coopers shite so no idea how Cooper is not in your list 

[okie fox]

McLintock & RVN.  Both great players but poor managers.

[Lionator]

In the same sense that Nigel Pearson wasn’t our greatest manager in terms of honours or records (he was).

 

Brendan Rodgers is our worst manager, despite the honours, because the path he has set us upon has been so catastrophic. 
 

Peter Taylor was bad but not as bad as Rodgers, following up MON was going to be impossible in that era, but he obviously made a pigs ear of it.

[The Horse's Mouth]

25 minutes ago, whoareyaaa said:

Rvn took overs Coopers shite so no idea how Cooper is not in your list 

Cooper was in charge for 10 games and left us in 17th, there’s not much there to consider him the worst with the other competition. 

[CWLCFC]

Yes he got us relegated, and he’s quite a dislikable bloke, but come on Rodgers who got us our 2nd and 3rd highest ever Premier League finishes and won us the FA Cup for the first time cannot be considered our worst manager.