Who is your manager of the season?
After their triumph on Sunday, Manchester United have now won just one fewer top-flight league titles than arch-rivals Liverpool (18 to 17), with Sir Alex Ferguson claiming his tenth in 16 seasons in the period which history will remember as the Premier League era.
Ferguson's team played some scintillating football, scoring 80 goals in 38 games compared to the more modest 65 for Chelsea, their nearest challengers. Having had to play second fiddle for two seasons to the big-spending west London club, Ferguson, reinvigorated by a fresh challenge, rebounded in some style by winning back-to-back titles himself. Surely, therefore, he is a certainty for our manager of the season award? Surely?
Not so fast.
Some might argue that the worst Ferguson should be expected to do with his superstar squad and the money at his disposal would be a place in the top two. United are matching expectations, certainly, but are they really exceeding them?
A fortnight ago Fulham trailed 2-0 at Manchester City with just 20 minutes remaining, only to turn that game on its head and record what turned out to be the first of three straight victories. The last of those, at Portsmouth, the FA Cup finalists, on Sunday, confirmed their place in the Premier League for another season and ensured that forever more the man in charge at Craven Cottage will be known as Roy “Harry Houdini” Hodgson. When he was brought in by Mohamed Al Fayed, the impatient owner of Fulham, after the sacking of Lawrie Sanchez at the end of December, all looked lost.
In the beginning, Hodgson certainly did not look like a genius, merely the pilot of a submarine set to dive to the lower reaches of the Football League. Signings such as Erik Nevland were ridiculed at the time, but the former Finland manager has been proved right. Whether he can do it again for a second season is very much open to debate, but Hodgson must be another of our candidates for manager of the season.
These are the others on our shortlist:
Avram Grant: looked like a dead man walking after defeat at Manchester United in his opening game, but carried Chelsea to within one game of the title and achieved what Jose Mourinho failed to do in guiding them to the final of the Champions League.
Arsene Wenger: for almost winning the Premier League with footballers plucked from the kindergarten at Arsenal and spending next to nothing in mounting a creditable title challenge.
Rafael Benitez: for managing to keep his job at Anfield amid serious boardroom upheaval.
David Moyes: for giving Liverpool a run for their money and getting Everton into Europe once again.
Juande Ramos: for winning a trophy for the long-suffering Tottenham Hotspur fans and successfully avoiding doing interviews for months by pretending he could not speak English.
Steve Bruce: left Birmingham City at just the right time and guided Wigan Athletic to Premier League survival.
Martin O'Neill: turned Aston Villa into one of the most entertaining teams to watch in the top flight and came within an ace of European qualification.
Sven-Goran Eriksson: OK, a long-shot now, but had a fantastic first half of the season. Deserves an honourable mention as probably the only manager in history of lose his final game in charge 8-1 to a side as poor as Middlesbrough.
What do you think? Vote for your manager of the season in our poll and please leave a comment in the box at the bottom of this post.
It's got to be David Moyes, what a magnificent effort on such a limited budget. Only Ferguson (with so much more resource at his disposal) could come close.
Posted by: Neil Hutchinson | May 11, 2008 at 10:23 PM