Premier League analysis: Ranking England’s top managers

Paul Clement

Paul Clement is a good manager.  He has learned in many different places including Chelsea, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich.  His time learning under Gus Hiddink and Carlo Ancelotti has turned Clement into a very interesting manager in that he seems very continental in his approach even though he is a very traditional Englishman.

Swansea City AFC is his first job as a manager having been an assistant coach in his time before that.  It’s one of the things that makes him such a phenomenal coach is his willingness to learn and his lack of ego.  Clement’s approach has made Swansea into a simply decent football side.  They don’t play survival football and yet at the same time aren’t overly concerned with impressing the casual viewer.  They play football in a very classic sense and do a phenomenal job of it.  If Clement can string some more years of success together there’s no reason why he can’t climb up this list.

The interesting thing will be seeing what happens at Swansea if Clement is given several years and allowed to start building the club in his image.He hasn’t had multiple transfer windows in a row to make changes yet and it could end up being the thing that puts him over the top as an excellent manager or exposes him as a fraud.  One imagines however that it will be the latter based off his deep knowledge and tactical acuity for football.