Only including those who have managed more than a handful of games this is how I rank our managers since Bobby: Howe Hughton Benitez Roeder Pardew Bruce Keegan Allardyce Kinnear Shearer Carver Souness
I think he may be referring to his second spell as manager under Ashley and not including his first spell in management and on that note I don't think you can compare Shearer's management to the others
Rafa's win percentage is way higher. Yes, that is largely due to him leading us back up from the Championship, BUT if we'd had Brucey at that time, there's a very good chance we could have 'done a Sunderland' and escaped the piss easy league via the back door.
Kevin Keegan made one hell of a misjudgement in trusting Mike Ashley. He soon discovered the situation though.
Mainly agree, just with Carver and Allardyce lower: Howe - amazing Houghton - did way better than we thought he would, brilliant championship season then decent in Prem including 5-1 Mackem slaughter. Benitez - did what we thought he'd do in taking us straight back up, but then pretty remarkable to finish top 10 in Prem with Joselu leading the line. Roeder - amazing in the first half season, then very average the next. Pardew - one brilliant season combined with a whole load of dogshit. An absolute knob too. Bruce - we finished higher than we thought we might with him, but that doesn't hide the fact we were utter dogshit a lot of the time. Plus Joelinton, Fraser, Miggy etc were wastes of space under him then suddenly play out of their skin under Howe. Keegan - we should have just left him in retirement, he'd clearly had his day. Kinnear - scraped a few points together, but pretty terrible under him. And an utter clown that embarrassed everyone around him. Shearer - gamble that didn't pay off. Souness - he's just **** isn't he? Turned a champions league team into certain relegation candidates. Allardyce - worst football I've ever seen us play combined with dreadful results. Horrendous. Carver - come back Souness, it's all forgiven...
I assume the difference in figures is either including or not including cup games as I've seen both with 28% win rates and Bruces slightly better. Either way both were actually pretty poor and whilst I love Keegan I don't really rate his second spell with us at all - add in that he had the supporters behind him and Bruce had to do it in spite of the supporters (that's only true for parts of his spell in fairness) and I'd say they were very similar if I'm trying to be objective. Both massively hamstrung by Ashley. Souness has to be bottom for me. He took over a good group of players when the club was doing very well, spent money on big name players like Owen (who he didn't want if I'm being fair) and Parker and then turned us into a poor team to watch who got poor results. Stop Press!!! I missed out McLaren. New list: Howe Hughton Benitez Roeder Pardew Bruce Keegan Allardyce Kinnear Shearer McLaren Carver Souness
I'm only looking at his second spell which didn't work out. Similar records but Keegan bowed out with the nuclear option (not blaming him for that, it was entirely Ashley) but Bruce just tried to make the most of the situation. Both had poor stats really.
Without the takeover I certainly think Bruce would be near the bottom of this list. Not a shadow of a doubt in my mind that we would of been bottom of the table come the end of the season. Absolutely rock bottom.
Keegan - 1st nothing and no-one will ever top what this man did for the club, regardless of cash spent and trophies won in future (Dariyah Cup included) Howe - 2nd Doing a cracking job so far. Benitez - 2nd Did a cracking job, playing **** football with his hands tied but his transfers which he was in charge of were ****ing woeful Hughton - 4th Did a caretakers job well and got a longer go - See Roeder Roeder - 4th See abover Pardew - 6th - Cringey **** - did well with what he had. Allardyce - 7th ****. Bruce 8th bigger **** than Allerdyce, Souness 9th Bigger **** than Bruce and Allerdyce combined. Kinnear 10th Useless **** Shearer 11th God of a player - **** manager Carver 12th Could do a better job myself than the self proclaimed greatest manager of his generation.
However Keegan didn’t have the financial support that Bruce had and Keegan was lumbered with tosspot Owen
Think there's a few in the middle of this list who left at the right time. I would draw a line between Pardew and the ones below him as a marker for which managers I'd say did a good job and those I'd say didn't quite do it but there's a few who if they'd hung around a few more months things were turning sour (or more sour) and could/would have taken us down - Roeder, Pardew, Bruce, Keegan, Allardyce, Kinnear
We were 12th and playing well when Pardew walked. I think we were safe. I also think we were safe under Keegan too
