Old boys' club: How do Pulis, Moyes and Allardyce keep getting top jobs?
One of the most remarkable statistics of the history of the Premier League is that it has never been won by an Englishman.
Indeed, the last time a native manager won the title was in 1992, when Howard Wilkinson guided Leeds United to the First Division.
Since then, four Italians, a Chilean, a Portuguese and a Frenchman have all lifted the crown. A couple of Scots have done likewise, Sir Alex Ferguson doing so 13 times with Manchester United and Kenny Dalglish with Blackburn. Another Scot, George Graham, led Arsenal to the UEFA Cup and Cup Winners’ Cup success in the middle of the 1990s.
But since the retirement of Ferguson, who is arguably the greatest club manager the game has known, in 2013, there has been a dearth of British talent at the top of the game.
True, Brendan Rodgers went close with Liverpool in 2013-14, when only an infamous Steven Gerrard slip against Chelsea cost his side the title, but the last time any of the Premier League’s top six finished with a Brit in charge was back in 2015, when the Reds limped into fifth under the guidance of the Northern Irishman.
It has not been for the want of trying. A succession of managers have been recycled through the Premier League system over the years, many clinging grimly on to jobs towards the foot of the table.
Their faces are familiar ones: David Moyes, Mark Hughes, Roy Hodgson and Sam Allardyce, as well as Tony Pulis and Alan Pardew. They are the game’s great survivors; regardless of how bad things might have gotten, they will always find themselves another job.
Certainly, that is what Pardew must hope after leaving WBA recently, having clocked up just one win in 18 attempts in the Premier League, shunted out of the club after a wretched display against Burnley left them floundering at the foot of the standings.
He has been here before, though, having spent spells at Reading, West Ham, Charlton, Southampton, Newcastle and Crystal Palace before West Brom.
Indeed, the 56-year-old is perhaps the best example of the indefatigable English manager. He may have a handful of promotions to the Premier League on his CV, but none of them has been achieved with much in the way of panache, and when he has been there he has rarely allowed a team to punch above its weight, with the one exception the Newcastle side of 2011-12.
Remarkably, though, Pardew is the most decorated of all of these names when it comes to the domestic game in England. Between the six aforementioned managers, he is the only one to have won a single major honour – the League Cup of 2010.
Mark Hughes and Tony Pulis have never won a trophy at any level of the game, while Moyes and Allardyce have at least claimed honours in the lower leagues.
Hodgson, meanwhile, has spent much of his career abroad and deserves to be cut some slack in this regard, particularly as he has reached a UEFA Cup final while in charge of Inter, but his last honour of any kind was a Danish Superliga title in 2001.
All this begs the question of how such managers have a seemingly relentless ability to bounce back from adversity by earning job after job.
Part of the reason is to do with a sense of ‘Britishness’ that many locals feel have been attacked over the years, not just in a footballing sense, but in a social one, too.
Fans can, therefore, be relatively easily placated by the appointment of a manager who plays what is considered a traditional British style. Often, this means simply that teams put in an absolute maximum amount of effort, with a premium placed on hard work and even harder tackles.
It does not matter to the average fan of a lower-end Premier League club that they are not playing tiki-taka football, as that is not their expectation, and in any case, there remains a tacit suspicion of such 'foreign' play.
Pragmatic tactics are supplemented inevitably by these managers speaking about the game in a manner club supporters can understand. Cliches are preferred to complicated metaphors, and many fans see that as attractive: they know what their manager is thinking and understand his point of view.
Indeed, when clubs appoint such bosses, they are generally in a state of crisis. They arrive as a manner of placating fans – at least for a short while. Managers like Hughes, Pulis and Allardyce are seen as low-risk appointments and often it takes several failures for their credibility to be undermined.
Managers are not, however, conditioned like this simply to please supporters. Instead, the environment in the lower leagues better reflects what the game used to be like at the top level, too. A premium is placed on physicality as opposed to technique, and as such, bosses with a taste for pragmatism are bred.
Few can break such a cycle, with Bournemouth’s Eddie Howe one of the few examples in recent times.
Perhaps the latest on this conveyor belt of such ‘British’ bosses is Shaun Dyche at Burnley. He is succeeding at Turfmoor in a very ‘British’ way. Of course, there is no guarantee that he will go the same way, but the raw ingredients are there.
The phenomenon of the British manager, therefore, is as much to do with personality as it is ability.
Unless there is a shift of social mentality in Britain or a dramatic change in the way the game is played at a worldwide level, it will be hard for any domestic-based talent to emerge.
It has been more than quarter of a century since an English manager last won the domestic league, and we may be waiting that long again before they do.