Best managers this season?

I know of the likes of Ferguson, Heynckes, Jol, and Conte, but how about some other managers that deserve some love?

There's a couple of managers that I have seen great performances this year, like Phillipe Montanier (Sociedad) and Christian Streich (Freiburg), but are there others?

Élie Baup

Jordi Roura.

Hyypia

/thread

Stramaccioni and Zeman FTW!!..best i've seen in many years

Murat Yakin

Heynckes by far

Could win the treble by the end of season, enough said

Read the OP FFS.

Simeone took Atleti to a cup final and has been closer to the top 2 than any other team in the past 5 years. Pellegrini became the first manager to take 2 debutant teams in the CL to the quarter-finals, and in both instances was unlucky not to go farther.

Rafa Benitez anyone? I know he's hated this part of the world, but his achievements desrve praise IMO.

Juggled between 4 competitions competently, dealt with an unbelievable schedule, was unlucky to lose in the FA Cup semis, got Chelski home and dry in third place, could possibly lift a European Title(albeit not the one he would have liked) and also found some use for David Luiz .

Not saying he's Manager of the year, just that he desrves credit too

valverde... if we had the points per game we got with him, we'd have 12 more points and comfortable cl qualification

14th in the table when he came, 5th 5 months later

AVB has done very very well at Tottenham, CL football or not.

CBarca wrote:AVB has done very very well at Tottenham, CL football or not.

+1

First time ever i am shitting about tottenham in 13 years

Agree AVB has done well, but it's not like he has overachieved given the squad or that Tottenham have done substantially better than before or anything. 2 that i can think of:
Montella. Managed to get Fiorentina into Euro contention after last year's relegation battle, despite that the fact that there were something like 15 new faces, including 8-9 of the XI. Played some of the best football in Italy too.
Simone: Managed to keep pace with the Real and Barca for much of the season despite a vastly inferior squad (and one minus one of their best players from last year in Diego). I mean look at that team, take out Falcao and you have a team that looks like a Europa League level team at best.

Aant he has done amazingly well with the resources available to him. He came in in the summer and asked for a couple signings: Damiao, Moutinho and Hulk were three that he wanted to be specific, especially Moutinho. He didn't get either one. Instead he got Dembele (who was a great signing), Dempsey, Sigurdsson, and Vertonghen. All turned out to be good signings, but none were of the class AVB wanted. Still, as a manager you can't ask for much more, especially at a club like Tottenham. He did get Lloris which was a class signing all around.

The biggest thing here though that he had to overcome in the summer? Losing the midfield maestro and Tottenham's main man Modric, losing Tottenham's best defender in King (arguable that Kaboul was better that season but King overall is...ridiculous), and the teams main offensive starlet Rafael VDV.

Then to compound things even more, he lost arguably last seasons best defender (and the best defender in Tottenham at the time after King retired), and BAE, Tottenham's starting LB, very early on in the season.

If you look at that total, AVB had been working with a squad that had lost 5 starters until BAE returned in February. And Kaboul still hasn't come back. Compound all of this with other random injuries like Dembele and losing the squads best player until January (Sandro) for the rest of the season, AVB has consistently had to play players like Parker, Huddlestone, Naughton and Carroll at different points in the season. Dempsey and Sigurdsson struggled for form until about December as well.

To top it all off, other than early season streaky Defoe, Tottenham have been essentially strikerless for the whole season, this is despite AVB wanting Damiao in the summer and in the winter.

We're going to ignore all of the switching of the style of play, formation, and rotation that AVB had to endure in giving this team a distinctive style while trying to grind out the results, and just look at what he had to deal with above. It's astonishing. And despite all of this, Tottenham will better their club points record on Sunday if they win, and he set a club record for games undefeated as well. He won at Old Trafford for the first time in 23 years, and tied them in a game Tottenham dominated at White Hart Lane. He turned Bale into a world class player in the middle, and showed off tactical brilliance in turning around a Tottenham side being destroyed by City, making a couple subs and winning 3-1 in emphatic fashion.

Every manager must face a large series of obstacles in a season. However especially for his first season, AVB has dealt with the unreal amount of obstacles in his way with Tottenham this season and has proven himself as an amazing manager and the best Tottenham have had in years. I think he certainly has overachieved, and if he can get the reinforcements needed next season, he can turn Tottenham into a real force next season.

Every manager must face a large series of obstacles in a season. However especially for his first season, AVB has dealt with the unreal amount of obstacles in his way with Tottenham this season

Okay, this is too much lol.

He has done nothing exceptional considering the hype he receives...

ExtremistEnigma wrote:

Every manager must face a large series of obstacles in a season. However especially for his first season, AVB has dealt with the unreal amount of obstacles in his way with Tottenham this season

Okay, this is too much lol.

My thoughts exactly! Ok, let's deal with this in parts:
Players/sold injured: So he had to deal with some players being sold and others injured. But is that really anything different to what every 2nd club has to deal with? It's not like say Milan this year where 10-15 players retired/were sold (including 6 their XI - Silva, Nesta, van Bommel, Aqua/Seedorf, Ibra, Cassano/Pato) or Milan last year with about 10 players with mid/long term injuries. And yet Allegri is constantly bagged

New players/formations: look at Fiorentina as per my post. 8-9 new faces in the XI (and about 15 in total), plus a new possession football style. Yet like Tottenham, they're still in contention for CL. Montella also changed formation seamlessly between 3-5-1-1, 3-5-2 and 4-3-3.

Failure to sign big name players: Come on, it's Tottenham!! I mean every club that isn't financed by Arab/Russian/US cash (or is named Barca/Real/Bayern) have that issue. For example, Juve are a much bigger club and have failed to sign their main transfer targets for the past 2 years (Vucinic was about 5th+ choice to Aguero, Sanchez, Rossi and Suarez; Bendtner was about 15th choice to RVP, Cavani, Jovetic, Higuain etc etc) but have still managed to win the title for the past 2 years.

So yes, AVB is a very good manager and has had to cope with some challenges, but my point remains that his achievements are:
1) not too dissimilar to managers before him at Tottenham;
2) pale into comparison with guys like Simogne, Montella, Guidolin, Allegri (and whoever the Sociedad and Freiburg managers are) who have vastly overachieved or had far greater challenges to overcome.

End rant #

Is there any doubt that the best manager is Simeone? The rest did well, but getting a EL and Copa del Rey (in the bernabeu, against real madrid, this can't be stated enough), beating their city rivals for the first time in the 21st century, all in 18 months is an incredible return. Simeone

ExtremistEnigma wrote:

Every manager must face a large series of obstacles in a season. However especially for his first season, AVB has dealt with the unreal amount of obstacles in his way with Tottenham this season

Okay, this is too much lol.

He has done nothing exceptional considering the hype he receives...

Apart from getting Spurs their highest ever PL points total?

If we're suddenly mentioning coaches of big clubs again, it's Klopp all the way, despite not winning the league.

How is that an achievement lol.. just 3 points greater than what Tottenham had achieved last season. CL football is still missing. Infact they'll be finishing 5th, a place down from last season.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:

ExtremistEnigma wrote:

Every manager must face a large series of obstacles in a season. However especially for his first season, AVB has dealt with the unreal amount of obstacles in his way with Tottenham this season

Okay, this is too much lol.

He has done nothing exceptional considering the hype he receives...

Apart from getting Spurs their highest ever PL points total?

+ longest ever unbeaten streak in EPL history for Tottenham

Need we go on?

EXTREMIST, HE IS SETTING RECORDS IN TOTTENHAM HISTORY AND YOU'RE SAYING HE HASN'T DONE BETTER THAN MANAGERS BEFORE HIM?

Pls go

VivaStPauli wrote:If we're suddenly mentioning coaches of big clubs again, it's Klopp all the way, despite not winning the league.

Best empty handed manager of the season award goes to Klopp, yes.