I have a theory.
It is not quite fully formed as I begin to write this week’s article, so forgive me for any inconsistencies or howlers as my thought process progresses in the next 800 or so words.
This theory is that Premier League managers can be divided into two groups – cleaners and polishers.
I’d better try to describe the two groups.
I’ll start with the cleaner. The cleaner has to take something that is messy and horrible and tidy it up, just tidy it up, nothing more complicated than that.
In Premier League terms, the cleaners are the guys whose roles are simply to stop a team going down.
There are two supreme leaders of the cleaner cult – Big Sam and Tony Pulis. They are there to provide organisation and discipline to players paid tens of thousands a week to be halfway decent. They are proud that they can stop sides getting relegated – and of course in the case of Palace in 2013/14, we are hugely grateful. But we can see with Pulis sides and with Allardyce sides there is little polish.
Let’s move on.
The polishers are there to provide shine – in the form of glorious performances and ultimately trophies. They take the cleaning bit for granted. That nonsense has been sorted out before their arrival, either by a seasoned cleaner or a billionaire owner.
The leader of this group, albeit on shaky ground at the moment, is Jose Mourinho. His roles at Porto, Chelsea, Inter Milan, Real Madrid and Chelsea again have all been about glory. He has the pretence of a cleaner with his focus on defensive security and reluctance to change the team too much, but in the end he has always had the elite players and new bottles of polish to make his life easier.
Arsene Wenger is actually the ultimate polisher, focussing more on the way his team plays than whether they gain enough points on the way. He has had the same bottle of polish for many years now – he is determined not to open a new bottle. Sometimes it looks like he doesn’t bother to see how much is left in the old bottle.
Jurgen Klopp is a shiny new polisher. He has polishing awards from his time in the Bundesliga, pretty much the same awards Pellegrini and van Gaal brought with them to Manchester.
Polishers have a personal trophy cabinet and a resume of working well with star players. That resume doesn’t have to be one that is consistently good for years and years, does it Louis van Gaal? If you convince chairman to ignore the bad years and JUST FOCUS ON THE GOOD YEARS (or beating Spain 5-1 in the World Cup), you’ll be fine. We can’t seem to develop many home-grown polishers in England it seems.
Let’s test my cleaner – polisher theory on the rest of the current crop of Premier League managers:
Manuel Pellegrini has to be a polisher. Every Manchester City manager these days has to be a polisher, whether they are one or not.
Mauricio Pochettino is an accidental polisher. He was brought in as a cleaner when Southampton thought they just wanted to stay up. He over-performed and was swiftly grabbed by Spurs, who need a proper polisher. Maybe he could transition to polisher in time….
Ronald Koeman is a polisher, who Southampton thought was a cleaner. They thought they would struggle but accidentally ended up with strong replacements and just the right manager.
Roberto Martinez is a cleaner that we think is a polisher. We associate him with good football but he is at his best convincing ordinary sides that they are polished.
Claudio Ranieiri is a polisher we thought was brought in to be a cleaner that turned out to be a polisher after all … for now.
Steve McLaren was trained as a polisher by Sir Alex Ferguson but has been cleaning ineffectively for many years.
Garry Monk is a polisher that we think is a cleaner. Swansea have fooled everyone for years playing decadent tippy-tappy football with second-hand goods.
I’m going to claim small sample size on Slaven Bilic. He was definitely hired as a cleaner, but Gold & Sullivan weren’t listening as he described how to polish a side.
Mark Hughes – never a polisher, so must be a cleaner.
Tim Sherwood. Neither, so fired.
Quique Flores is the Watford manager and so will move on before we work out what he is.
Alex Neil and Eddie Howe are tricky ones. They definitely performed with polish last year, but they need to transform into cleaners this season. That is a tough task and I’m not sure there are many cleaners-turned-polishers out there.
One does come to mind. Someone who has always looked to play football but is capable of setting up teams with defensive discipline.
He doesn’t do too many draws as he is always looking for three points one way or another. We call him Super Al. The man who has brought polish to SE25.
