5% Villa: Premiership Managers Ranked by Playing Ability

[Somniloquism]

O'Neill above Mancini? Really? I know he won the European Cup with Forest, but that still suprises me.

.
Me too. That's not right.

Was it one or two EC winner medals he won? Genuine question as I thought they won two back to back so did he join or leave Forrest after the 1st?

[Somniloquism]

Kenny Dalglish - 102 caps for Scotland
Alex McLeish - 77 caps for Scotland
Mark Hughes - 72 caps for Wales
Martin O'Neill - 64 caps for Northern Ireland
Paul Lambert - 40 caps for Scotland
Roberto Mancini - 36 caps for Italy
Roberto Di Matteo - 34 caps for Italy
Martin Jol - 3 caps for Netherlands
Owen Coyle - 1 cap for Republic of Ireland

Not for the first time, I'm not really sure what your point is.

That none of those managers should be the next England manager I suspect.

[Matt C]

Fergie 9th? He wasn't all that as a player was he?

[KevinGage]

McLeish was a gutsy, determined CB from what I recall.   He had to be, as he was pretty short for a centre half.   But better than Di Matteo?!

And O'Neill ahead of Mancini is barking. O'Neill was a solid player in a decent Forest side. 
Mancini was one of the best players in Serie A - when the calibre of player there across the board was incredibly high.

[cdbearsfan]

Alastair Campbell posted this on his blog a few days ago, and it's stuck in my mind ever since.

Rank the Premiership's managers according to their skill as players: this is his verdict.

1. Dalglish. 2. Hughes. 3. O’Neill. 4. Mancini. 5. Lambert. 6. McLeish. 7. Di Matteo. 8. Jol. 9. Ferguson. 10. Redknapp. 11. Moyes. 12. Connor. 13. Coyle. 14. Pardew. 15. Martinez. 16. Pulis. 17. Wenger. 18. Hodgson. 19. Kean. 20. Rodgers.

I'd go 1 Dalglish 2 Mancini 3 Hughes 4 Di Matteo 5 McLeish 6 O'Neill 7 Lambert 8 Jol (never saw him play but am basing it it on if he's got three caps for Holland he must've been ok) 9 Pardew 10 Coyle 11 Ferguson. The rest, much of a muchness.

[eamonn]

Di Matteo was decent but nothing special. If he's that high up it must mean that Dalglish, Mancini and Hughes were the only world-class players. I'm too young to have watch Harry Redknapp and Uncle Woy stut their stuff.

Did Wenger actually play football? I thought he just spent his young manhood studying football, languages and economics twenty-four seven, subsisting on the 'Bowie in Berlin' diet of milk, peppers and cocaine minus the cocaine. Arsene is too thin and gaunt to be an ex-player surely.

[QBVILLA]

O'Neill above Mancini? Really? I know he won the European Cup with Forest, but that still suprises me.

.
Me too. That's not right.

Was it one or two EC winner medals he won? Genuine question as I thought they won two back to back so did he join or leave Forrest after the 1st?

I may be wrong here but i think Clough left him out of the '79 final and he played in the 1980 final.

[Tom Sawyer]

Roy Hodgson played a bit for Crystal Palace and then bombed to non league. He should be bottom of anyone's list.

[Californian Villain]

O'Neill above Mancini? Really? I know he won the European Cup with Forest, but that still suprises me.

.
Me too. That's not right.

Was it one or two EC winner medals he won? Genuine question as I thought they won two back to back so did he join or leave Forrest after the 1st?

I may be wrong here but i think Clough left him out of the '79 final and he played in the 1980 final.

MON only played in one of the finals; not sure if you have it the right way round or not. Whichever, he was far from a world class player - even Djimi Traoré has got a EC winners medal!

[Californian Villain]

Fergie 9th? He wasn't all that as a player was he?

Top scorer for Rangers in 1965-66, so can't have been that bad.

[QBVILLA]

O'Neill above Mancini? Really? I know he won the European Cup with Forest, but that still suprises me.

.
Me too. That's not right.

Was it one or two EC winner medals he won? Genuine question as I thought they won two back to back so did he join or leave Forrest after the 1st?

I may be wrong here but i think Clough left him out of the '79 final and he played in the 1980 final.

MON only played in one of the finals; not sure if you have it the right way round or not. Whichever, he was far from a world class player - even Djimi Traoré has got a EC winners medal!

Just checked, he played in 1980 and was on the bench in '79

[Risso]

Roberto Martinez is way too far down the list.

I'd move him up around the level of Martin Jol and Siralex

As I may have mentioned once or twice before, I have shared a football pitch with Martinez.

[cdbearsfan]

I know. He's always boasting about it

[Billy Walker]

I think Mancini was technically the best out of that lot.  A superb player on his day - he had the lot.  Dalglish certainly won a fair few more honours and was a very, very good player put, technically, he did not have the range of qualities Mancini had in my opinion.

[DeKuip]

Let's not forget that Lambert was a Champions League winner with Borussia Dortmund, and a decent player too.
Redknapp was also a decent player in a good West Ham side. I'd put both of them above O'Neill.
McLeish's centre-back partnership with Willie Miller at Aberdeen (and Scotland) was up there with the best in Britain at that time.

As someone else has said though – only Dalglish, Hughes and Mancini could be bracketed as world-class players. I saw two of them win cup finals at Villa Park too.