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Liam Rosenior might be the most doomed manager appointment in Premier League history; Chelsea do have an unfortunate knack for it.<\/p>\n
Rosenior is very much on the brink at Stamford Bridge<\/strong> after a 3-0 defeat to Brighton \u2013 Chelsea\u2019s fifth consecutive league defeat without scoring.<\/p>\n That is their worst such run since 1912, the year the Titanic sank. Subs, stick a joke in here please.<\/p>\n It has never felt as though Rosenior could make things work at Chelsea even from the off; he showed his \u2018arrogance\u2019 from the first day<\/strong> and his articulate arse ever since.<\/p>\n But is he the most doomed manager in Premier League history? This lot might argue otherwise\u2026<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Emery won 1.85 points per game in his time at the Arsenal helm, which is only slightly less than the legend who came before him and, for a time, not far off what his successor could muster.<\/p>\n The shoes of Arsene Wenger (1.95) were always going to be difficult to step into, and Mikel Arteta (2.29) perhaps needed a sacrificial lamb to fuel his process.<\/p>\n Emery led the Gunners to fifth in his only full season, a feat Wenger failed to better in his last two campaigns; Arteta\u2019s first two seasons saw Arsenal largely flounder and finish eighth.<\/p>\n The way Emery has transformed Aston Villa has led some to believe he could have achieved similar with Arsenal<\/strong>but that level of control was never going to be granted to the man superseding a 22-year dynasty.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Having remarkably led Fulham to the UEFA Cup final in 2010, Hodgson was tasked with returning Liverpool to past glories as what chairman at the time Martin Broughton called \u201csomeone to steady the ship\u201d after the departure of Rafael Benitez.<\/p>\n Hodgson, whose Premier League finishes to that point were 6th, 17th, 7th and 12th, was never designed to be a particularly inspiring appointment; he was picked by Kenny Dalglish, whose candidacy the club rejected before bringing the Scot into the manager selection process and then installing him as Hodgson\u2019s replacement a few months later.<\/p>\n Hodgson\u2019s reign remains the shortest of any post-war Liverpool manager tenure. It featured a deeply uncomfortable amount of Christian Poulsen<\/strong> and a hilarious acknowledgement that the Reds \u201care in a relegation battle\u201d after a home defeat to Blackpool.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Portuguese? Check. Young? Check. Insignificant\/no playing career? Check. Porto manager? Check. Treble winner? Check.<\/p>\n Alas, Villas-Boas was no Jose Mourinho.<\/p>\n While his predecessor at Stamford Bridge took the Premier League by storm, Villas-Boas\u2019 disruption was seemingly confined to the Chelsea squad. He demoted club legends to the reserves, where they stewed at being cast aside by the supposed authority figure who had less hair on his chest than they did<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Villas-Boas was sacked in March and by May Chelsea had won another FA Cup and their first Champions League trophy. But to this day it enrages John Terry that he was asked to sit in economy while Josh McEachran had some first-class legroom.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n There is a perfectly cogent argument for Steve Cooper to take this place, or indeed basically any part of Leicester\u2019s Premier League manager succession line which for the foreseeable future will read: Brendan Rodgers, Dean Smith, Cooper and Van Nistelrooy.<\/p>\n The supporters were never going to take to Nottingham Forest favourite Cooper but he was at least vaguely equipped for a relegation fight. There was precisely nothing in Van Nistelrooy\u2019s coaching career which suggested he could adapt to the circumstances.<\/p>\n Van Nistelrooy was basically appointed on the back of a four-game Manchester United caretaker stint in which two of his three wins were against Leicester, where his record was a diabolical P27 W5 D3 L19 F24 A57, featuring a seven-match losing streak without scoring that would make even Rosenior wince.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Nuno was at best fifth choice behind Mauricio Pochettino, Paulo Fonseca, Gennaro Gattuso and Antonio Conte, who decided he actually did want the job after his between-appointments-buffer was sacked after 17 games.<\/p>\n Nuno was in that sense a means of granting Conte a bit of extra holiday. Like the Igor Tudor to Roberto de Zerbi, basically.<\/p>\n Former Wolves boss Nuno, who fell upwards from finishing 11th with the Molineux club and leaving upon the expiration of his deal as things had grown stale before taking over the side in 7th, was handed a two-year contract when Spurs grew tired of rejection.<\/p>\n He asked for a midfielder and back-up for Harry Kane and was given funds for neither. New sporting director Fabio Paratici took time out of his busy schedule to scowl from behind Nuno on the touchline, presumably sending scouting reports to Conte on his sun lounger as they prepared for his inevitable arrival after the stopgap was relieved of his duties.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n As slaps to fans\u2019 faces go, this was a doozy. Not only had they lost one of the greatest managers in history in Carlo Ancelotti, the Everton board decided to replace him with a man whose face had adorned dartboards in public houses to the north of Stanley Park for the past decade and a half.<\/p>\n \u2018We forgive you, Rafa\u2019 signs could be seen at Stamford Bridge as the Chelsea supporters managed to put past grievances behind them during the Spaniard\u2019s stint with them. They could rise above that mid-2000s grudge<\/strong> but Everton fans hung \u2018Benitez not welcome\u2019 and \u2018F*** off Benitez you fat Kopite c***\u2019 banners on the gates to Goodison Park \u2013 sadly without the self-censorship.<\/p>\n Benitez, who had branded Everton a \u201csmall club\u201d during his time in charge of Liverpool, spoke up his \u201cgreat connection with the city\u201d and pointed out that he had \u201cbeen supporting a lot of great charities\u201d for years on Merseyside, including the Hillsborough Family Support Group.<\/p>\n But the damage was done and a three-year contract always seemed remarkably optimistic from all parties.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Take it from the man himself<\/strong>:<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a bad decision by me to go in there, and I\u2019ve got to take ownership of that. There\u2019s no point blaming timing or circumstances. I should never have gone in. It was too soon after Tottenham.<\/p>\n \u201cUsually when you go into a club, they want change. But the reality is, I don\u2019t think they really wanted what I had to offer. I don\u2019t even think they wanted to interview me.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the end, I have to take ownership. I made a decision based on not working and seeing a group of players I thought I could improve. That blinded me to the reality \u2013 it was never going to work long-term. Even if I\u2019d won a few games, it wouldn\u2019t have lasted.<\/p>\n \u201cLooking back, I don\u2019t know what I was thinking. I should\u2019ve had more extensive discussions before taking the job. But I\u2019ve always been the type to say: Get me in there and I\u2019ll show you.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n It was always destined to fail<\/strong> \u2013 although few predicted just how quickly and hilariously.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n A new dawn at Chelsea. New owners, new players, a new manager and a new long-term strategy. Todd Boehly and his Clearlake consorters wanted a legacy. No more obviously brilliant managers who win stuff all the time. Thomas Tuchel? No thanks.<\/p>\n But actually, why not wait a bit to sack the obviously brilliant manager so that the relative novice replacing him doesn\u2019t have the benefit of a pre-season with this group of completely random players that have been assembled as much so other clubs can\u2019t have them as Chelsea actually wanting or needing them?<\/p>\n Oh, and you know that over-the-hill striker signed five days before Tuchel was sacked who\u2019s a famously bad dressing room influence? He\u2019ll score all the goals, right? Cool.<\/p>\n There has been some attempted revisionism over Potter\u2019s tenure, with suggestions that he actually had Chelsea coached well and ultimately just lacked a goalscorer of requisite quality. But it was a miserable seven months<\/strong> and Potter only avoided half a year of derogatory face-swaps by boring everyone to sleep.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n It would have been fascinating to see how Sir Alex Ferguson might have done had he stayed for one more season. Despite Moyes having a Premier League-winning squad to work with, many of those players were past their best<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Paul Scholes, ever deferential even in his podcast-based Indian summer, retired with his gaffer. Ryan Giggs, Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic stuck around for one final season but had essentially checked out. The constant repair works on Robin van Persie in 2012\/13 as he won United the title had taken their toll.<\/p>\n The Scot couldn\u2019t say no having been told by Ferguson that he would be the next Manchester United manager, but was also probably aware that the chalice he had been handed was about as poisonous as possible.<\/p>\n Not only was Moyes replacing the greatest and most autocratic manager in Premier League history, he was also taking over at a point when the greatest rebuild was required. And without Mike Phelan there to pop any balloons in the vicinity<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Moyes admittedly doomed himself somewhat by signing Marouane Fellaini and asking a group of Premier League champions \u2018What would Phil Jagielka and Leighton Baines do?\u2019, but the hand he was dealt always felt destined to flop.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Those big-brained Chelsea owners do appear to have locked themselves in something of a cycle while trying to reinvent the sport:<\/p>\n 1) Sack or make a decent coach\u2019s reign unnecessarily untenable.<\/p>\n 2) Replace them with someone painfully out of their depth at an elite level, who also has something of a penchant for saying silly things<\/strong>.<\/p>\n 3) Start off well enough before soon collapsing after the first poor performance or sign of bad form.<\/p>\n 4) Take ages to swallow collective pride and make an unavoidable decision to dispense with said drowning manager.<\/p>\n Even when those steps are inevitably repeated soon enough, it is difficult to fathom a more ill-fated appointment than that of the over-promoted, internal hire whose squad nickname reveal in the impending long reads is eagerly anticipated.<\/p>\n READ NEXT<\/strong>: Ranking 24 BlueCo mistakes at Chelsea as Rosenior appointment joins three sackings<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/div>\n10) Unai Emery (Arsenal)<\/strong><\/h2>\n
9) Roy Hodgson (Liverpool)<\/h2>\n
8) Andre Villas-Boas (Chelsea)<\/h2>\n
7) Ruud van Nistelrooy (Leicester)<\/strong><\/h2>\n
6) Nuno Espirito Santo (Spurs)<\/strong><\/h2>\n
5) Rafael Benitez (Everton)<\/strong><\/h2>\n
4) Ange Postecoglou (Nottingham Forest)<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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3) Graham Potter (Chelsea)<\/strong><\/h2>\n
2) David Moyes (Manchester United)<\/strong><\/h2>\n
1) Liam Rosenior (Chelsea)<\/strong><\/h2>\n