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LONDON. — English football is arguably going through its best period in recent memory.
The women’s team are European champions, the men’s team have made big strides at major tournaments in recent years, while English Premier League teams remain ultra-competitive in Europe, especially in the Champions League, where six of the last 10 finalists have all been from the English top-flight.
However, even with the revival of the Three Lions under Gareth Southgate — who despite their quarter-final exit at the FIFA World Cup to France have looked as competitive as ever — there is one notable area where English managers are highly notable by their lack of success — and that’s the honours board.
English managers are in something of a crisis on this front and the numbers are damning. Take the English Premier League for instance — England’s “whole new ball game,” as Sky introduced it back in 1992, turned out to be a competition an Englishman has, as yet, been unable to win.
Howard Wilkinson remains the last English manager to win the top-flight in England after winning the last season of the First Division being the pinnacle of the game in the country when Leeds United pipped Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United to glory in 1992.
Even before that English managers lacked success on this front. Before Wilkinson the previous success was Howard Kendall with Everton in 1987.
Sadly it doesn’t get much better on the continent. No Englishman has guided a team to Champions League or even European Cup glory since Joe Fagan with Liverpool in 1984.
On a bizarre side note here, Bob Paisley, Brian Clough and Tony Barton for Liverpool, Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa respectively ensure England hold the record for most consecutive years one country has had a manager win Europe’s premier club competition, with six — yet it remains just seven in total.
It’s just as bad in the Europa League where no English manager has triumphed since Keith Burkinshaw with Tottenham Hotspur in 1984.
Factoring in the European Cup-Winners’ Cup and the recently established Europa Conference League even then English managers still struggle.
Since 1985 only one has cracked Europe, with Bobby Robson guiding Barcelona to success in the Cup-Winners’ Cup back in 1997.
Even the domestic cup competitions are steering away from English managers. Harry Redknapp was the last to pick up an honour in England when he sensationally guided Portsmouth to FA Cup glory in 2008.
Since the formation of the English Premier League, Joe Royle is the only other Englishman to lift the famous trophy when his Everton side stunned Manchester United at Wembley in 1995.
Four English bosses have won the League Cup but just one of those has been since 1996 with Steve McClaren guiding Middlesbrough to their first trophy in 2004.
Before him there were a trio of winners from 1994 with Ron Atkinson, Roy Evans and Brian Little tasting success with Aston Villa, Manchester United and Villa again respectively.
Time to crunch the numbers. Since the start of the English Premier League, factoring in the English top-flight, its two major domestic cups and the four major European trophies in that timespan have come across 158 competitions. A paltry total of just seven of them have been won by English managers.
Why? It certainly didn’t help English managers at the start of the English Premier League in 1992 when Ferguson’s Manchester United started dominating the early years.
His Scottish compatriot Kenny Dalglish was his initial main rival at Blackburn Rovers and while Kevin Keegan’s ”Entertainers” at Newcastle United briefly threatened, Frenchman Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal soon became the real rivals to Fergie’s United.
Wenger though brought a new approach to the game that appeared to be ahead of the more British style, focusing on diets and fine margins that his Gunners side brought into from his arrival in 1996 and it immediately fired them to the top.
The British way quickly became unpopular – especially at the leading sides in the English Premier League – and the influx of foreign bosses started. It didn’t go unnoticed among English managers either.
Sam Allardyce, a highly successful manager in the Premier League was once ridiculed for essentially saying he wouldn’t get a top level job in the game because his name wasn’t exotic enough.
”I won’t ever be going to a top-four club because I’m not called ‘Allardici’, just Allardyce,” he remarked while he was West Ham United manager.
Given his long-ball reputation, there was perhaps another reason for that, but his point wasn’t without substance.
Of the traditional big six clubs seen as the major contenders for trophies (with the exception of Tottenham Hotspur, who have only won two League Cups since the formation of the English Premier League) hardly any of them have gone English in the last decade.
For Manchester United and Arsenal you have to go back to the 1980s for their last full-time English appointment.
Manchester City haven’t looked at one since the big money started rolling into the club in 2008.
Liverpool had mixed success with Roy Evans in the 1990s but may still be licking their wounds from the disastrous six-month reign of Roy Hodgson before he was axed over a decade ago.
This alone would explain a big part of the reason why English managers don’t win anything — especially in Europe — as they quite clearly have very limited chances to do so. Now step in Chelsea and Graham Potter. The Blues’ surprise timing of the sacking of Thomas Tuchel to replace him with the up-and-coming Potter is a real opportunity for an English manager to gain some credibility back.
The Blues of course had already gone English recently for the first time since 1996 with Frank Lampard, but barely gave the club legend a chance before he was harshly sacked 18 months into the job. — Mailonline
Online Reporter