Great teams need great managers and here are five of the very best the English game has ever seen.
When it comes to hauls of silverware no manager in the English game can match the 22 trophies amassed by Manchester United legend Sir Alex Ferguson.
But who else comes close to the venerable Scot? Here are the five who got their hands on the League Trophy, the FA Cup and League Cup more than anyone else.
22 – Sir Alex Ferguson (Manchester United)
Winning the three major pieces of domestic silverware 22 times in just 24 years is off the scale – and very nearly wasn’t allowed to happen.
Fergie, a title winner in Scotland with Aberdeen, arrived at Manchester United in 1986 but by December 1990, with nothing to show for his efforts, he was fearing the sack.
Six months later he was proudly holding aloft the FA Cup at Wembley and the rest, as they say, is history.
And just to emphasise his supremacy over all his peers and rivals, he also won three Champions Leagues.
12 – George Ramsay (Aston Villa)
And so to another Scot but an altogether different age and the remarkable career of George Ramsay.
The son of a Glasgow ironmonger, Ramsay had arrived in Birmingham as a wide-eyed teenager finding work as a clerk in a brass foundry.
A few years later he was playing for Villa and in 1886 was appointed the club’s first professional manager and secretary.
His 40 years at the helm at Villa were known as the club’s Golden Age, a period in which he oversaw six Football League wins and six FA Cup successes.
10 – Arsene Wenger (Arsenal)
Arsenal fans were hugely underwhelmed when little-known Frenchman Arsene Wenger was appointed head coach in 1996.
Yet within two years he had masterminded a Football League and FA Cup double – the first foreign coach to pull off the feat – as he transformed the fortunes of one of London’s biggest clubs.
His greatest season was surely in 2003-04, a league campaign in which Arsenal failed to lose a single league match to earn the title, The Invincibles.
9 – Pep Guardiola (Manchester City)
Chasing down Arsene Wenger is Pep Guardiola, who has piled up nine trophies in just seven years at Manchester City.
The decorated Spaniard arrived at The Etihad with a sterling reputation after successes at Barcelona and Bayern Munich and, backed by City’s mega-rich owners, he quickly started breaking records in England.
Guardiola has won the Premier League four times – including becoming the first manager to lead a team to over 100 points in a single season – and also won four League Cups and the FA Cup.
9 – Bob Paisley (Liverpool)
A Liverpool player for 14 years, assistant to Bill Shankly for another 15, the affable Bob Paisley finally got his chance to manage the team in 1974 – and he knew he had to hit the ground running.
The famously modest Paisley succeeded Shankly just days after the Scot had guided Liverpool to FA Cup glory at Wembley.
Shankly’s were big shoes to fill but undaunted, Paisley calmly built a side around stars like Dalglish, Hansen and Rush, winning the league six times and the League Cup three times, with three European Cups the icing on the cake.
