Ranking the best managers in Premier League history

ByAlex Bysouth

BBC Sport senior journalist

When it comes to ranking managers, titles are a good place to start.

Only four bosses have won more than one since the Premier League era began in 1992. So if you do some quick maths, you'll probably not be surprised by the names that top this list.

But there is a debate to be had around where they should rank, and who else makes it into the top 10. So let's have it.

You can rank your greatest managers of the Premier League era below too.

Longevity deserves a mention here. Take David Moyes, for example, racking up 755 games in Premier League dugouts - only Arsene Wenger (828) and Sir Alex Ferguson (810) have more.

Naturally, Moyes has the third-most wins in Premier League history too, although his 291 across spells with Everton, Manchester United, Sunderland and West Ham fall some way short of Wenger's 476 at Arsenal and Ferguson's 528 at United.

Pep Guardiola is also on Scotsman Moyes' shoulder despite managing barely half as many games.

Harry Redknapp has the fourth-most games under his belt (641), fifth-most wins (236) and also completes the top five for goals scored (818).

We should talk about win percentage too, and the former Tottenham manager who really deserves a shout here is Mauricio Pochettino, who guided Spurs to their best-ever Premier League finish of second in 2016-17 and also coached Southampton and Chelsea.

The Argentine is the only manager - of those who have coached more than 100 games - to have not lifted the title yet still won more than half his games throughout his Premier League career.

But really, to make this list, you have to have won a Premier League title. In total, 13 managers have done so. Meaning three are getting left at the door.

Arne Slot of Liverpool is the first to be cut. The others are a hard choice.

Manuel Pellegrini's Manchester City record was impressive before the Chilean made way for Guardiola. During those three years, plus 17 months at West Ham, his average of 1.92 goals per game ranks fifth among all managers with a century of matches.

But he spent big at the Hammers only to then endure a desperate run of form - so the man known as the Engineer, the only manager from outside Europe to win the title, misses out.

As does Antonio Conte, who had boom and bust spells at Chelsea and Spurs.

Instead, the pair are pipped by the only boss to win the title in all of Europe's top five leagues.

10. Carlo Ancelotti. Title winner 2009-10

AC Milan, Bayern Munich, Paris St-Germain, Real Madrid and, of course, Chelsea.

King Carlo has steered them all to domestic glory, not to mention his Champions League record of five successes. Yet his initial tenure in the English top flight was fleeting.

The Italian blitzed his way to the Premier League crown at the first time of asking at Stamford Bridge. But, after snapping up Fernando Torres for a then-British record fee from Liverpool the following January, Ancelotti was swiftly shown the door after Chelsea finished as runners-up in his second season.

A surprising return to England came via the Everton dugout, where Ancelotti delivered successive mid-table finishes before Real Madrid came calling.

9. Mikel Arteta. Title winner 2025-26

Earlier this year, Mikel Arteta became the 13th manager to win the Premier League but the first Arsenal boss to do so since Arsene Wenger in 2004.

The Spaniard also snapped an eight-year run of either Manchester City or Liverpool winning the trophy.

Bursting clear of his rivals like they were a technical area, Arteta shrugged off questions over his team's sometimes robust style as well as those who suggested the Gunners were destined to always be runners-up.

As the only current Premier League boss to have won the title, and with Arsenal adding to an already stacked squad this summer, you wouldn't bet against the former playmaker creeping further up this list in future.

8. Roberto Mancini. Title winner 2011-12

Agueroooo! And all that.

Premier League titles don't come more dramatic than two goals in added time - including a 94th-minute winner - on the final day of the season, especially to clinch a first top-flight crown in more than 40 years while denying your arch-rivals.

Roberto Mancini got Manchester City's lavish new era rolling by winning the FA Cup in his first full season, having replaced Mark Hughes in December 2009, and followed up with the title before he was sacked the following summer.

The Italian, though, stacks up well, boasting the fourth-best points-per-game tally for any boss to have managed at least 100 Premier League games - coming in just above Conte and Jose Mourinho - and the fifth-best win percentage.

Meanwhile, his City stars make the top five for goals per game and boast the best record for fewest goals conceded, a miserly 0.83 per game.

7. Kenny Dalglish. Title winner 1994-95

Kenny Dalglish's greatest success as a boss came at Liverpool before the Premier League era began, winning three titles in four seasons, initially as a player-manager, before he departed in February 1991 after almost 15 years with the club.

He wound up at second-tier Blackburn Rovers eight months later and immediately steered them into the Premier League via the play-offs.

Bankrolled by local businessman Jack Walker, Rovers snapped up Alan Shearer from Southampton for a British record fee of £3.6m and then finished fourth and second before overcoming Manchester United to win the title in 1995.

That made Dalglish only the fourth manager to win the English top flight with two different clubs.

Dalglish was unable to repeat the trick at Newcastle, although they finished runners-up in both the league and FA Cup during his tenure, while his return to Liverpool ended in 2012 after League Cup success but an eighth-placed finish.

6. Claudio Ranieri. Title winner 2015-16

Dilly ding, dilly dong. Ranieri rides into the top six on pure vibes. The man behind the 5,000-1 miracle. The one who turned a cast of footballing misfits into an all-conquering force. The father of Leicester City's Premier League triumph.

That is worth his entry alone. Yet, in what seems another lifetime, the Tinkerman almost got his hands on a winner's medal more than a decade earlier.

Buoyed by the first wave of Roman Abramovich spending, Ranieri steered Chelsea to second in 2004, only behind Arsenal's Invincibles.

Chelsea probably should have won the Champions League too, losing in the semi-finals to Monaco, but that became a defining moment for the man who would replace him.

5. Jurgen Klopp. Title winner 2019-20

Jurgen Klopp is in some ways the Andy Murray of the Premier League. All action, high-octane performances, adored by his fans yet prickly under pressure. He enjoyed incredible success but would probably have dominated more were it not for a generational opponent.

In this rather stretched analogy, Manchester City are Klopp's Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. If it had not been for his Catalan counterpart down the M62, Klopp's rock 'n' roll Reds would have been the undoubted top dogs under the German.

Instead, they racked up more than 90 points on three occasions and 'only' clinched one title in 2019-20 - it was, however, Liverpool's first in 30 years and their first of the Premier League era.

4. Jose Mourinho. Title winner 2004-05, 05-06 & 14-15

Lungs still pumping from that touchline sprint at Old Trafford, Jose Mourinho landed at Chelsea days after guiding Porto to a remarkable Champions League triumph and declared himself a 'Special One'.

Taking the baton from Ranieri and armed with a host of new signings, the Portuguese enigma stormed the title in his first season - Chelsea winning the league by 12 points, conceding only 15 goals and ruffling the raincoats of Wenger and Ferguson.

Mourinho backed it up in his second season before relationships began to fray and the most successful boss in the club's history left in September 2007. Mourinho, though, had transformed the Blues into a formidable force.

He returned six years later, after titles in Milan and Madrid, and clinched his third Premier League crown in his second season, only to be gone by Christmas of the following campaign.

Box-office spells followed at Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur, but they came nowhere near the success of his time in south-west London.

3. Arsene Wenger. Title winner 1997-98, 2001-02 & 03-04

It's fine margins between Wenger and Mourinho, as both their arrivals brought the dawn of new eras in the Premier League.

Indeed, Mourinho once said Wenger is a "specialist in failure", but in this list the Frenchman just pips his rival thanks to engineering the only 'Invincibles' season in Premier League history.

Wenger, joining from Japanese outfit Nagoya Grampus Eight, was deemed a curious choice at first but professionalised Arsenal and led them to league titles in 1998, 2002 and - the piece de resistance - that unbeaten season of 2003-04.

That he was unable to win another title in the 14 years that followed perhaps tarnishes Wenger's legacy slightly, but the Arsenal team he built during his first decade was one of the best the Premier League ever witnessed.

2. Pep Guardiola. Title winner 2017-18, 18-19, 20-21, 21-22, 22-23 & 23-24

Talking of managers who changed the face of English football, no-one has moved the game right from the elite level through to grassroots as much as Pep Guardiola.

Blame the Catalan for Sunday League goalkeepers playing out from the back.

And to think there were question marks over whether Guardiola's style - honed at Barcelona - would work in the more robust English game.

Guardiola was, of course, lavishly backed in the transfer market, but his Manchester City side won titles at a prolific rate.

City became the first English men's side to win four in a row - they landed six Premier League titles in total during Pep's decade in charge, as well as notching a century of points in 2018.

1. Sir Alex Ferguson. Title winner 1992-93, 93-94, 95-96, 96-97, 98-99, 99-2000, 2000-01, 02-03, 06-07, 07-08, 08-09, 10-11, 12-13

The first two decades of the Premier League were dominated by one man.

Sir Alex Ferguson won 13 titles and was able to continuously rebuild his side in order to keep Manchester United at the top of English football - from Eric Cantona to the '99 Treble winners, and later that front three of Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez.

Even after Ronaldo left for Real Madrid in 2009, and Tevez defected to the other side of Manchester, Ferguson continued winning titles until he retired in 2013.

His record title haul is more than double any manager from any era of men's English top-flight football, not just the Premier League - Guardiola, Liverpool's Bob Paisley and George Ramsay for Aston Villa are next on the list on six.

It makes Fergie the undoubted number one.