To paraphrase the great Homer Simpson, it is not only easy to criticise, but fun, too. It is quite simple to sit and judge from this ivory tower, but hey, that's football after all, merely a game of opinions. Being a Premier League manager must be one of the loneliest gigs in the world, particularly when results are wayward and your job security is the subject of international speculation.
For those reasons, it should be easy to sympathise for these people, who still retain that humanity at the end of the day. Alas, somebody has to compile a list such as this.
Before we begin, we need to point out some important distinctions to making this hall of infamy. This is not simply ranking the gaffers with the worst win ratios, rather those who underperformed expectations to a staggering extent that it's almost impressive. For example, Kieran McKenna has the worst win percentage of any Premier League manager to take charge of a full 38-game season with 10.5%, but did anyone really expect an Ipswich Town side who had won back-to-back promotions to stay up?
Without further ado, here are GOAL's picks for the worst Premier League managerial tenures ever:
Getty Images Sport10Les Reed (Charlton Athletic)
Football fans under the age of 25 will probably know of Les Reed from previous lists such as this. He has only ever been a manager once, and it turns out there's a pretty good reason as to why he never entered the profession again.
Reed, who will turn 73 before the end of 2025, has enjoyed a successful career in a variety of backroom staff, developmental and consultancy roles, notably helping build the Southampton teams of the mid-2010s and more recently advising Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac at Wrexham. He's clearly a clever man, just one not suited to being a football manager.
Charlton Athletic were an established top-flight side heading into the 2006-07 season, but following the departure of club legend Alan Curbishley, the only manager they had ever employed in the Premier League, they first turned to Iain Dowie, who was arguably awful enough to have made this list instead having won only two non-cup matches before his autumn dismissal. Reed, Dowie's assistant, was named as successor, but he proved out of his depth in the hot-seat and won merely one of his eight games at the helm, which came courtesy of a last-minute goal to beat Blackburn 1-0.
Alan Pardew became the Addicks' third manager of the season and managed to take the survival race down to the penultimate week of the campaign, but it was too little and too late to save the south Londoners from relegation.
AdvertisementAFP9Remi Garde (Aston Villa)
Aston Villa's decline and eventual relegation from the Premier League in 2016 truly began with the appointment of Tim Sherwood a year earlier, but hey, he managed to steer them clear from the drop at the end of the 2014-15 season and led them to an unlikely FA Cup final. When ex-Arsenal star Remi Garde was brought in as his replacement, there was genuine hope and belief he could bring together a band of misfits.
That Villa team included names such as Jack Grealish, Idrissa Gueye, Jordan Veretout and Jordan Amavi who would go on to have fine careers elsewhere, yet ultimately the team lacked enough quality around them, as Garde came to find out. Despite earning a credible 0-0 draw with title favourites Manchester City during his first match in the dugout, Garde emerged as the victor in only two of his 20 Premier League matches at the helm, with own goals being scored on both occasions to boost Villa's chances.
It was a strange failure considering Garde had steered Lyon through their post-Ligue 1 titles patch of transition and only left the club in 2014 due to personal issues. This short stint in the West Midlands made him effectively unemployable in Europe again however, with his next – and to date, latest – job coming in MLS with the Montreal Impact from 2017 to 2019.
AFP8David Moyes (Manchester United)
Listen, is it harsh for David Moyes to make this list considering how woeful every Manchester United manager has been ever since his reign? Yes, but we also need to remember how his spell felt in the moment.
The Red Devils were the reigning champions. It was no secret they had wanted other managers to succeed Sir Alex Ferguson instead – Jose Mourinho, Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola were among the names floated at the time – and so Moyes walked into an unideal situation from the off. That also slightly reduced the weight of expectation on him, yet he still managed to limbo beneath that bar regardless.
United's philosophy under Fergie was 'win at all costs'. It transcended formations and personnel. Under Moyes, they endeavoured to do the opposite and was the first in a long line of failures at Old Trafford. Ruben Amorim may yet crack this list when all is said and done, while Erik ten Hag's final 18 months where the vibes went straight to hell are worthy of a place here, but the United nomination has to go to the man who started this run.
Getty Images Sport7Roy Hodgson (Watford)
Roy Hodgson has earned a deserved reputation of steering teams to safety and making them competitive against top sides. You can see why Watford pivoted to him in January 2022 having already dismissed Xisco Munoz and Claudio Ranieri with the team teetering on the brink of the relegation zone.
The blueprint seemed simple enough. Hodgson, at this stage breaking his own record for oldest manager in Premier League history, would bring steady principles to a side in need of stability and they would cobble enough points together to move away from the drop. It sounded great in theory, less so in reality.
The veteran manager couldn't bring together a fractured dressing room and, if anything, made relations between the club and fanbase worse. Following their 1-0 defeat at his past (and future) club Crystal Palace, Hodgson applauded the Selhurst Park home crowd, but neglected the away end, claiming they were too far away for him to acknowledge.
Remarkably, Hodgson, who failed to secure even a single home victory at Watford, lasted until the summer before being shown the door by the trigger-happy Pozzo family, seemingly heading into retirement before heading back to Palace for old time's sake.