The Top 10 football managers of the decade, as chosen by Martin Lipton

By Martin Lipton in Mirror Football Blog

Published 08:42 15/12/09

10) Steve Bruce (Teams managed this decade: Huddersfield Town, Wigan (twice), Crystal Palace, Birmingham, Sunderland)
By Roy Keane's standard - that you are not a good manager until you can show your silverware - then Bruce is a failure. But by real standards, he is an outstanding success and getting better all the time. The best illustration of the job any man does is when his successor cannot match those achievements with the same players, and the aftermath of Bruce's exits from Birmingham and Wigan underpin his credentials. Now finally getting his hands on some money to spend and already making a big impact at Sunderland, the Geordie has demonstrated he should be considered a contender for the biggest job in the game when Fergie finally turns it in. Also the most affable manager in the Premier League and a great bloke to sit and chat about the game with.

9) Guus Hiddink (Real Betis, South Korea, PSV Eindhoven, Australia, Russia, Chelsea)
It took only four months at Chelsea for Hiddink to prove how foolish the FA had been in asking him to audition when they needed to find Sven Goran Eriksson's successor in 2006. The tournament results Hiddink achieved with Holland, South Korea, Australia and Russia demonstrate his intelligence, but his ability to pick up the broken pieces dropped by Luis Felipe Scolari and put them all back together in a matter of weeks was outstanding. For the Chelsea players it was just like playing for Mourinho again, only without the overpowering ego, and he shared their pain and anguish at the bitter and undeserved away goals defeat by Barcelona. Hard to believe, especially with Russia's World Cup flop, that we won't be seeing him again soon.

8) Sam Allardyce (Bolton, Newcastle, Blackburn)
They still won't believe it at Newcastle - and don't say it too close to Arsene Wenger - but Allardyce is one of the most enlightened and forward-thinking managers in the domestic game. His use of video analysis and ProZone was ground-breaking, as was his determination to use a full coterie of coaching staff designed to get the maximum out of modest players. His efforts at Bolton went unrecognised - and miscast as grunt and grind football - but that was about the quality of players he could afford to sign. Newcastle remains a bitter disappointment, while at Blackburn he has come back to the same sort of situation he left at the Reebok. But that Allardyce is capable of bigger and better things is without question. Fantastic company, too.

7) Rafa Benitez (Tenerife, Valencia, Liverpool)
Although possibly destined to become the latest Liverpool manager to fail to get his hands on the title, the Spaniard has demonstrated his ability to come to a foreign country, rebuild a team and lead them to the greatest of feats. While Benitez admits the Istanbul dressing room was chaos and confusion at half-time against AC Milan in 2005, his speech, urging the players to remember, "You can't call yourselves Liverpool players if you have your heads down", galvanised the team to produce a comeback that will live forever. Conjured an FA Cup final victory from the jaws of defeat 12 months later and so close to pulling off that Anfield title dream last season. Saw what others did not in Fernando Torres and Pepe Reina and, of course, unleashed the inspirational talisman of Gerrard.

6) Martin O'Neill (Leicester, Celtic, Aston Villa)
Mercurial, maverick, obstinate and a huge grudge-bearer. But a manager most players would run through a brick wall for - and that shows what he is all about. O'Neill has tried to take the best of Brian Clough without any of the worst, darker excesses, and while he is a nightmare to fall out with - as I know from personal experience - he only holds a beef about things for five or six years. Like Clough, who used Peter Taylor as the link-man, O'Neill is more of a motivator than a coach, leaving much of the technical side to Steve Walford and John Robertson. But he retains a terrific eye for a player, holds his own and fights his corner at every opportunity, with a hinterland outside the game dating from his days as a student lawyer. Mesmeric and intelligent although, despite the trophies at Leicester and Celtic, needs more silverware.

5) Harry Redknapp (West Ham, Portsmouth (twice), Southampton, Tottenham)
Still believes he should have been considered for the England job - and you only have to spend a little time in his company to see why. Arguably nobody takes more infectious pleasure out of being on the training ground than 'Arry, and having waited all his career for a big club, is now thriving and revelling in his task at Spurs. More importantly, his belief in football as a production line is still serving England well, with the likes of Ferdinand, Lampard, Carrick and Joe Cole England mainstays. Will probably never get the chance of coaching the Three Lions, largely because of the perceived baggage he carries, yet would be the perfect option if the FA are seeking a home-grown, experienced man to fill Capello's shoes when the Italian moves on.

4) Fabio Capello (Roma, Juventus, Real Madrid, England)
Inherited an England side slumping into its darkest crisis of confidence for more than a decade and turned it around inside a year through his focused cast of mind and determination to leave no stone unturned. The treatment of Michael Owen, while harsh, was all about changing the mentality of the squad and their reliance on the hitman. But finding a shape that allows Rooney, Gerrard and Lampard to thrive and develop a team spirit that finds ways of winning tight games rather than devising the means of losing them, is a huge culture change. The big test, of course, is still to come. Should Don Fabio pass it, he can only move higher up the rankings and make himself the most popular Italian ever seen on English soil.

3) Jose Mourinho (Uniao de Leiria, Porto, Chelsea, Inter Milan)
Love him or hate him - and it is very easy to do both at the same time - the Special One made our lives more interesting from his first steps on English soil. Surely the most self-centred man ever to manage, but such was his character and vibrancy that the week did not seem the same without a fix of Jose to keep you going. His players loved him too - the arrogant assurance, the attention to detail, the winning mentality - even if he did not care how his side achieved their triumphs. That personality was always going to prove his Achilles heel when it came to dealing with Roman Abramovich, but until Carlo Ancelotti can start winning the trophies Mourinho won, the void will not have been filled. Odds-on to be back in England next summer.

2) Arsene Wenger (Arsenal)
Articulate, charming, insightful, intelligent - and a terrible and blinkered old curmudgeon when he loses. But Arsene Wenger was the man who rebuilt Arsenal in his own image, turning a side that was a byword for defensive drudgery into, at times, the most thrilling side in English football. Not clubbable by any sense, and with few close friends in the domestic managerial fraternity, Arsene nonetheless has the utter respect of his players and also the media, who have enjoyed the joust for 13 years. There is a darker, colder side to him, but the warmth when you talk about the pure values of the game is what will remain when he decides the project can go no further. Let us hope that will not be for a few years yet.

1) Sir Alex Ferguson (Manchester United)
Hardly rocket science to pick the most successful manager in the history of English football, but if anything, Fergie has become a better and braver boss with the passage of time. His real genius has been the ability to decide when a team's time was over, rip up the blueprint and start again, building an even better side next time around. It helps when you have United's money, but while there have been a few duds - think Kleberson and Eric Djemba Djemba ("so bad they named him twice") - and the self-harming rows with Stam, Beckham and Van Nistelrooy, the Cantona and Ronaldo signings were proof of his far-sightedness, while the Fledgling generation have thrilled us for more than a decade. In a different context, the Sicilians would call him Cappa di tutti Cappi: the boss of all the bosses.

Who gets your vote for manager of the decade? Let us know by leaving your comments below...

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