Worst ever managers - we have had a few

[Stadt]

10 minutes ago, everton carr said:

Ayew 5M  BDR free transfer both signed as squad players. No don't think Enzo would have accepted having to sign bargain basement players. He would have wanted a budget of over 100M to give us a fighting chance

Ayew started in 5/10 games under Cooper and Reid 4/8 (sorry those apps where they've made apps so not totally reflective).

 

The original point was he was a dogshit manager for various reasons, the fact we didn't spend more money is probably a good thing

[Soar Fox]

1. Holloway (squad was more than good enough to stay up)

2. RvN awful manager totally clueless just kept 8 games in a row without a single league goal. 
 

3. Peter Taylor after an initial good few months that Fa Cup defeat completely derailed us. He never recovered afterwards, treated a club legend terribly. 

[Fox92]

3 hours ago, Finnegan said:

 

It absolutely wasn't "more than good enough." It was pretty awful and wasn't a surprise at all it went down. 

 

Could it have stayed up with a better coach? Yeah possibly but it was a much worse squad than the one we have now. 

 

Allen deserves a lot more stick for assembling as much of it as he did. Holloway was an easy target because his chipper personality grates on people, especially when things aren't going well, but it was a big ask to keep us up. 

 

I don't completely hate him and I don't think he'd even make my list of top 5 worst managers in my lifetime. 

 

Better than some of the squads that stayed up. We went down with something like the third best defence in the league.

 

Our squad included players that were more than proven at that level, Oakley/Clemence/Howard, plus McAuley was solid and went onto have a good top flight career, as did Stearman. Hume was half decent at that level and used to get double figures for us. 

 

I will always stand that we should not have gone down. I don't even think we'd have gone down with Megson in charge. Agree that Allen started the mess (as did Mandaric overseeing it all, getting involved and letting it happen) but for being the man in charge while it happened Holloway goes down as one of the worst for me (it is hard to compare different levels/squads/budgets throughout history, granted). 

[Bazly]

3 hours ago, Finnegan said:

If you're measuring managers as managers not just as head coaches (ie, their impact on the whole club not just on-field performance) then I don't think there's any argument here. 

 

It's Brendan Rodgers by a massive, massive, massive distance. 

 

Fair points. OK - it's BR for the toxicity in spite of one significant redeeming aspect, our one and only FA Cup. I think that was the last 'good game' that I enjoyed a whole game of football involving LCFC.

[Corky]

Taylor was horrendous. Some of the results in his last six months were disgusting. Lost at home to the eventual bottom four, Wycombe and a play-off winner whilst lumbering us with Wise.

 

Holloway was shit. Rodgers ruined our best chance to establish ourselves with his usual pathetic behaviour whilst Cooper and van Nistelrooy provided 37 mostly dire matches whilst saddling us with Ayew, Reid, Skipp (for his price).

[The Year Of The Fox]

3 hours ago, Finnegan said:

If you're measuring managers as managers not just as head coaches (ie, their impact on the whole club not just on-field performance) then I don't think there's any argument here. 

 

It's Brendan Rodgers by a massive, massive, massive distance. 

 

Forget your hate for King Power for a moment, forget that Rudkin and Top enabled him and were ultimately responsible for letting him run riot. 

 

He took a club that had had been fairly successful in the transfer market, had built and given him a pretty decent squad and had a general philosophy of mostly signing assets that could be up-sold with room to grow both in talent and value and he said **** that.

 

He implemented his "broken players" ideology, filled the squad full of his nonsense, horrifically mismanaged all of his own approved signings, plummeted everyone's value, tanked the squad's personality and then morale, erased all culture of graft, hard work and fight and then moaned about it.

 

The financial problems we're still in now can be traced back to the wage bill he helped inflate for the players he got us to sign, plenty of whom aren't good enough even for this level. If we go down to League One this year with the highest wage bill ever to be relegated from the Championship, which is likely, to go with our record for the highest wage bill to ever be relegated from the Premier League then he'll deserve significant blame for both.

 

We're still drowning now trying to tread water under the weight of his contributions to the club. Taylor, Pleat, Holloway, Allen and Co never, ever had this sort of lasting impact. 

 

Yeah, Rodgers had a "Director of Football" above him that shielded him from some of the responsibility on paper but we all know one of Rudkin's biggest failings has been surrendering control to his managers and that Rodgers was mostly pulling the strings. 

 

Liverpool knew how much of a disaster he was and curbed his influence there. We had no such sense. 

 

Was he our worst ever Head Coach? No. We've many worse, including those immediately before him and most since. But worst ever manager of the football club? For sure. 

 

👏🏼 

 

On this you are 100% accurate 

[The Year Of The Fox]

3 hours ago, Finnegan said:

 

It absolutely wasn't "more than good enough." It was pretty awful and wasn't a surprise at all it went down. 

 

Could it have stayed up with a better coach? Yeah possibly but it was a much worse squad than the one we have now. 

 

Allen deserves a lot more stick for assembling as much of it as he did. Holloway was an easy target because his chipper personality grates on people, especially when things aren't going well, but it was a big ask to keep us up. 

 

I don't completely hate him and I don't think he'd even make my list of top 5 worst managers in my lifetime. 

 

On paper maybe 

 

Would this squad go on a cup run beating Forest after gifting them a goal, beat a PL Villa away, and then run Chelsea away very close too?

 

Absolutely not 

 

We also had the second best defensive record that season in the league. Were ’some way’ off that this season 

[Foxmeister]

23 minutes ago, Fox92 said:

Better than some of the squads that stayed up. We went down with something like the third best defence in the league.

 

Our squad included players that were more than proven at that level, Oakley/Clemence/Howard, plus McAuley was solid and went onto have a good top flight career, as did Stearman. Hume was half decent at that level and used to get double figures for us. 

 

I will always stand that we should not have gone down. I don't even think we'd have gone down with Megson in charge. Agree that Allen started the mess (as did Mandaric overseeing it all, getting involved and letting it happen) but for being the man in charge while it happened Holloway goes down as one of the worst for me (it is hard to compare different levels/squads/budgets throughout history, granted). 

I believe we’re the only team ever to be relegated conceding less than a goal a game.

[Gubbins]

Its a personal thing and I fully get that he's not even remotely as bad as most of the names mentioned on this thread but im gonna give a shout out to Maresca. If anything my opinion of him has gone up recently as he managed to get some of the losers playing for us now to win games but his slow mechanical and insanely dull style of football was the absolute pits. It was  everything I hate about the modern way of playing and for me gets him included in the atrociusness of the last 5 years. The fact he made winning a f**king league unenjoyable is pretty unique and makes him worthy of an honourable mention.

[The Year Of The Fox]

5 minutes ago, Gubbins said:

Its a personal thing and I fully get that he's not even remotely as bad as most of the names mentioned on this thread but im gonna give a shout out to Maresca. If anything my opinion of him has gone up recently as he managed to get some of the losers playing for us now to win games but his slow mechanical and insanely dull style of football was the absolute pits. It was  everything I hate about the modern way of playing and for me gets him included in the atrociusness of the last 5 years. The fact he made winning a f**king league unenjoyable is pretty unique and makes him worthy of an honourable mention.

Yeah, totally agree

 

The only game I remember enjoying was that Southampton game towards the end of the season

 

 

His football was absolutely horrendous to watch. I walked out of that Watford home game at the start of the season in disgust. It was no better than Rodgers’ football in his last 2 years here.

[shen]

20 minutes ago, Gubbins said:

Its a personal thing and I fully get that he's not even remotely as bad as most of the names mentioned on this thread but im gonna give a shout out to Maresca. If anything my opinion of him has gone up recently as he managed to get some of the losers playing for us now to win games but his slow mechanical and insanely dull style of football was the absolute pits. It was  everything I hate about the modern way of playing and for me gets him included in the atrociusness of the last 5 years. The fact he made winning a f**king league unenjoyable is pretty unique and makes him worthy of an honourable mention.

 

12 minutes ago, The Year Of The Fox said:

Yeah, totally agree

 

The only game I remember enjoying was that Southampton game towards the end of the season

 

 

His football was absolutely horrendous to watch. I walked out of that Watford home game at the start of the season in disgust. It was no better than Rodgers’ football in his last 2 years here.

Maresca never enters this conversation.

 

It's fair enough you disliked the style of football, but his results were good and he was probably responsible for saving our behind financially/PSR wise when he, his staff and KDH went to Chelsea. He effectively gave us a blueprint for a successful team and Cooper and the recruitment staff left behind messes it up. Compare this to the mess Taylor & Rodgers left us with.

 

Also, cast your memories back to the football we played under Holloway, Levein or even just Cooper, RVN and Cifuentes - utterly disjointed and ineffective. How you can brand Maresca's style worse than those is quite staggering to me.

[apollo4joe]

16 hours ago, Mark 'expert' Lawrenson said:

Peter Taylor for dismantling everything MON built 

 

RVN for that no scoring home run of games 

 

Rodgers for having the hump and sabotaging us from within 

 

CFuentes. For being out of his depth and dull football 

 

Holloway for being a buffoon and taking us down playing for q draw

 

Levein. For buying loads of rubbish players from Scotland and just a poor time 

 

I also dislike Mark McGhee with a passion but can’t say he should be in the worst. 

You're right about Mcghee. I remember toward the end of his time here his style of play had been found out by other teams and we had already started the slide down the table. By no means the worst, but a good mention.

[Clogger_]

Like others agree with Finnegan about Rodgers - poisoned the club. Of others, Cooper gets an easier time in this thread than he should

Edited 6 March by Clogger_

[CosbehFox]

I do find it interesting no one in the English game has gone near Steve Cooper. 
 

I heard somethings that he was a pretty bizarre bloke behind the scenes. 

[murphy]

For me it was always Peter Taylor for dismantling O'Neil's team, but that position has been usurped by Mr Snake Oil -  Brendan Rodgers.   

 

When he was appointed, I said it would all end in tears.  No one has caused more damage to this club. 

Edited 6 March by murphy

[murphy]

15 hours ago, everton carr said:

Ayew 5M  BDR free transfer both signed as squad players. No don't think Enzo would have accepted having to sign bargain basement players. He would have wanted a budget of over 100M to give us a fighting chance

They might have been cheap, at least in terms of fee, but they were very much first teamers for cooper. 

 

Imagine taking a newly  promoted team and thinking that a pair of geriatric journeymen would be the answer to keeping them up!  Cooper and his 'experience' fixation.  

 

Imagine compounding that horror by then breaking the bank and over-paying by about triple for a spurs reserve defensive midfielder that we didn't need. 

 

Cooper takes the bronze medal.  It's an awful indictment of the club that there are two even worse in recent memory. 

Edited 6 March by murphy

[Mike the Metal Ed]

15 hours ago, Fox92 said:

Better than some of the squads that stayed up. We went down with something like the third best defence in the league.

 

Our squad included players that were more than proven at that level, Oakley/Clemence/Howard, plus McAuley was solid and went onto have a good top flight career, as did Stearman. Hume was half decent at that level and used to get double figures for us. 

 

I will always stand that we should not have gone down. I don't even think we'd have gone down with Megson in charge. Agree that Allen started the mess (as did Mandaric overseeing it all, getting involved and letting it happen) but for being the man in charge while it happened Holloway goes down as one of the worst for me (it is hard to compare different levels/squads/budgets throughout history, granted). 

Drawing your home games and losing your away games is a great strategy for survival. 

 

I might be biased though because every single league game I went to under his management was an exercise in torture I wouldn't experience again until last season.

[everton carr]

43 minutes ago, murphy said:

They might have been cheap, at least in terms of fee, but they were very much first teamers for cooper. 

 

Imagine taking a newly  promoted team and thinking that a pair of geriatric journeymen would be the answer to keeping them up!  Cooper and his 'experience' fixation.  

 

Imagine compounding that horror by then breaking the bank and over-paying by about triple for a spurs reserve defensive midfielder that we didn't need. 

 

Cooper takes the bronze medal.  It's an awful indictment of the club that there are two even worse in recent memory. 

BDR and Ayew both played practically every game in the PL in the previous season so were proven at the level they just didn't work out it's happens at all clubs.As for being geriatric think BDR was 30 when we signed him Ayew 32 so hardly old.

[shen]

16 hours ago, Foxin_Mad said:

Its always been Taylor for how he destroyed the O'Neill team, however I think Cifuentes come pretty close, despite the problems at this club, it should not ever be struggling in this division with this set of players. He was a complete and utter halfwit of a manager, unfit team, terrible tactics, not improved one thing one bit during his time here. Truly abysmal running, pressing and xg stats. 

We lost Heskey before Taylor even landed here. Lennon, Walsh, Marshall, Collymore, Zagorakis, Arphexad and Cottee left shortly after, while some players declined or were struggling with injuries like Flowers.

I.e. a huge part of the club culture and player quality left or were on a sharp decline.

 

There were a few decent signings under Taylor (Walker, Rowett, Davidson), but obviously some massive misses as well. At the time, I thought it was a good appointment having been England U21s Manager and us needing a rebuild. It turned out really bad, but in retrospect, he probably had a far tougher job on his hands than we as fans want to acknowledge - certainly far tougher than Rodgers had.

[murphy]

45 minutes ago, everton carr said:

BDR and Ayew both played practically every game in the PL in the previous season so were proven at the level they just didn't work out it's happens at all clubs.As for being geriatric think BDR was 30 when we signed him Ayew 32 so hardly old.

Yeah, your argument has won me round.  And here I was thinking they were a pair of over-the-hill dossers that can't even cut it in The Championship. 

 

Nice one Steve.  Excellent recruitment. 

 

 

Edited 6 March by murphy

[Freddy]

18 hours ago, Stadt said:

Skipp, Ayew and Reid have all the hallmarks of Cooper signings. 
 

Skipp - England U17s under Cooper, took MGW to Forest on th back this link and similar at Swansea.

 

Ayew - signed his brother twice ffs

 

Reid - PL experience is something he parked for at Forest, you cod tell who were his signings and who were the clubs.

 

BEK and Okoli were pretty obviously not his players. Buonanotte, no idea on that one.

Cooper loves an experienced player or two and whilst I don't believe he could have done what Nuno did after him at Forest, I would give any manager more than 10-12 games, we weren't even in the drop zone when he was ousted. Not a Cooper fan BTW. Brighton have passed Buona on a few times, it was prob a good experience at Leic at the time. 

[Samilktray]

Steve Cooper was revolting, RVN also equally as revolting but he at least didnt pander to the behind the scenes problems. Also Steve Cooper had a Forest badge air freshener in his car when turning up to our games.

[everton carr]

1 hour ago, murphy said:

Yeah, your argument has won me round.  And here I was thinking they were a pair of over-the-hill dossers that can't even cut it in The Championship. 

 

Nice one Steve.  Excellent recruitment. 

 

 

The fact they have been poor don't change the fact they both had good careers prior to Leicester.Ayew over 300 PL games over 100 international caps.And it's a team of 5 who have to agree on signings not just the manager.

[Stadt]

1 hour ago, Freddy said:

Cooper loves an experienced player or two and whilst I don't believe he could have done what Nuno did after him at Forest, I would give any manager more than 10-12 games, we weren't even in the drop zone when he was ousted. Not a Cooper fan BTW. Brighton have passed Buona on a few times, it was prob a good experience at Leic at the time. 

We obviously were going to be in the relegation under cooper though. Winning very luckily at Southampton, one of the worst PL sides ever,  they went down to 10 and we had a penalty (they should have had one too but it wasn't given) gave us 3 points we didn't deserve.

 

 

 

Ipswich went down to 10 for us to draw late on there too. 1 point from 15 in his final 5 games, he wasn't going to turn that around because he was an abysmal manager, we should never have appointed him. The RVN appointment was disastrous but the Cooper one ****ed us more.

[Fox92]

Forest beating us at home while singing our managers name, Cooper, was one of the worse things too experience.