Rank these managers according to who was poorest. Reasons for selection would be great.

- Ossie Ardiles - Jim Smith - Jack Charlton - Kenny Dalglish - Ruud Gullit

I know I could have named far more but I thought I'd keep it limited at this stage. Personally, I'd go Jack Charlton (worst), Ruud Gullit, Jim Smith, Ardiles, Dalglish (least bad). Youse lot?

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

Answers

From worst to nearly worst:
Dalglish - he destroyed something beautiful
Ruud Gullit - just finished the job
Jack Charlton - negative football.... gave Kenny a few ideas :((
Jim Smith - just incompetent
Ossie Ardilles - I actually liked the guy. I'd have stood by him as we sank into Div 3 oblivion. Would he hae been succesful if given the backing that Keegan got?

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

Gullit and Dalglish both did rather badly when they both had the money to spend.

Ardiles tried probably the right thing at the wrong place and the wrong time!

Hard to judge Smith and Charlton against the others.

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

WOT!!!..No Wor Messiah?.....He BROKE your hearts...and walked out twice..AND cried on the telly :-)...at least with the others you knew you were shit from the start.

"Cheer up Kevein Keegan.........."...Andy Cole :-)

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

The difference here LR is that Keegan built a dream for us to live and it was his to shatter. Dalglish and Gullit didn't even look like creating something special, especially Dalglish. Much like Big Ron!

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

Where's Bill McGarry? I think a taj hard on Ruud, he bought Dyer, Domi & Goma (big plusses) got rid of Batty, Guivarch. Sure the man management wasn't good, few would have say Maric a bad buy without the benefit of hindsight, Marcllino was a mistake & Ferguson was too much.

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

KK was not a snide arsed slimeball like SAF,

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

I'd have Gordon Lee in any top 5 worst Toon managers!

Come to think of it we've had a load of crap between Harvey and Keegan (+ Ruudy) haven't we?

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

Disappointed Richard Dinnis misses out :-(

But in order of descending crapitude -

Dalglish - for the rapid and surly destruction of a great team whilst not even having the real financial constraints of earlier managers,

Ossie Ardiles - wanted to play attractive football but never had the players. His naivety nearly took us to the third division - although he did suffer from the worst of the takeover wrangling. Howvere his crapness as a manager has been more than evident in all his subsequent attempts

Gullit - again had the funds and support of the board, but failed miserably due to huge personality defects, and it's doubtful whether he is manager material

Jack Charlton - very lacklustre despite managing his home team. Wanted to be adored, but didn't ever do enough to merit it. Got the feeling he thought mediocrity was enough - and he had the makings of a good side to work with even though Keegan had left - Beardsley, Waddle, Roeder, McCreery and Gazza - should have done better.

Jim Smith - ok, he got us relegated, but with Beardsley, Waddle and Gazza all sold by the board when McFaul was manager, it was hardly his fault and he made a reasonable stab at getting promoted back up straight away, on meagre resources

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

In retrospect, I think I should have asked for top 5 decent managers - would have been easier. Frank Watts, Stan Seymour, Kevin Keegan, Bobby Robson, Joe Harvey (ish). Er, any more good managers?

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

I don't think Newcastle's ineptness over the years is entirely manager related - many have been in untenable positions due to the board. Smith, Cox, Charlton, Lee, McGarry etc didn't last long enough to even make much of a lasting imprint. With Dinnis and McFaul the board even penny-pinched on the managerial front by promoting an assistant manager, hoping they'd be less pushy and demanding. The real impacts on the team were by enforced selling and mediocre funding.

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

This is a stupid question. It should read, APART from Dalglish, who are the worst United managers? The man is out on his own for his destruction of the 5-0 team and it's transformation into a relegation outfit inside a few months.

There is absolutely no comparison. I think that is probably the worst piece of management seen ANYWHERE, never mind just in the Toon's history.

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

You're into your hyperbole, this morning, pet ((-:. Actually, had we won the title, we might have done a Blackburn cos we had no foundations whatsoever (even KK admits this) hence the ease with which Dalglish turned us into so poor an outfit.

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

Jonno

You don't believe that having argued that NUFC were crap because he hadn't been there for pre-season training, spending around #15m, sidelining Lee, Shearer, Dunc, Pistone, Dabs, spliting the entire organisation down the middle, signing Marcelino, failing to rid us of Maric, Perez and Hamilton, and STILL getting us to 2nd bottom, 1 point from 6 games (an achievement Kenny could only dream about) does not make Gullit a worse manager?

There are a number of plusses to his reign, the highlight being YKD, but I don't think Kieron would've been too happy to be playing Div1 football for us after seeing Ipswich go up last year.

Dags was bad, very, very bad, but I can't see how you can seperate his disasters from RG's.

Worse still, Ruud tagged us with that bloody awful 'sexy football' thing. That was asking for trouble.

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

Blackburn were built on an individual's dosh...while we were helped by Sir John he only really put us where a club froma city of our size should be.

Worst- Gullit (arsehole) - Dalglish (crap, but at least he was good to his players) - Ossie Ardiles (weak) - Jack Charlton (too defensive) - Jim Smith (I liked him - just indicative of who we were then as opposed to now)

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

Bobby

I thought RG's sexy football comments were made towards Portugal at Euro 96, then the press put it upon him and his every move. Even to the extent that he came out in the press and said he wanted his teams to play effective football (or somthing like that, may have been efficient).

As for most things blame the press.

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

All bad in their ways. Ardiles was at least a nice little chap.

At the time Jim Smith was manger I used to phone Clubcall from work (I've had counselling) every day and end up in disbelief that he hadn't been sacked.

Dalglish's willful incompetence allowed Gullit to get away with a lot.

Jack Charlton kept us up for a season when we had maybe three or four top division players (pre-international Waddle, Beardsley and above average Roeder, McCreery). He didn't have the will to spend, or the imagination to take it further. I often wonder whether if he'd stayed the sadness that is now Gazza may well have been controlled and nurtured under his strictness.

McFaul was clueless but survived off Gazza.

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

This is very interesting - no two answers are remotely alike. It would be interesting to see how we'd have done had we ever stuck with a manager a la Ferguson..... Remember after the Sunderland game last season when we were talking about whether we were unmanageable etc?

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

Bobby

Way OTT.

>>>>You don't believe that having argued that NUFC were crap because he hadn't been there for pre-season training,

He never said crap - he simply said that things would have been better with PST. (With hindsight they might, of course, have been worse.) (-;

>>>>spending around #15m,

Most of it on Duncan - superb player but sadly too injury prone, and Dyer - brilliant value for money there. Have you added up how much Dalglish spent and looked at who he bought? Did we really need 17 left backs?

>>>>sidelining Lee, Shearer, Dunc, Pistone, Dabs,

Not as bad as selling Asprilla and Ferdinand (without replacement). Ginola? Pedro? Srnicek? Hislop? (Well at least we had Perez to replace the latter 2!) Shearer was dropped for one game. He was not playing well ever since TSM arrived due to lack of service. Neither TSM nor Gullit did Shearer any favours.

>>>>spliting the entire organisation down the middle,

Terrible - almost on a par with converting the 5-0 team into relegation fodder.

>>>>signing Marcelino, Serrant, Brady, Hamilton, PEREZ, Rush, Thomasson - sheesh! You're on a loser here Bobby. (-;

>>>>failing to rid us of Maric, Perez and Hamilton,

Ahem, 2/3 of whom were TSM signings. (-;

>>>>>and STILL getting us to 2nd bottom, 1 point from 6 games (an achievement Kenny could only dream about)

Au contaire. KD got ZERO points from EIGHT games. They just weren't at the start of the season. BTW of those 6 games 2 or 3 were away to top 5 opposition, one was the infamous Rennie sending off of Shearer, and another was played on a waterlogged pitch unfit for a game of football.

>>>>does not make Gullit a worse manager?

Gullit was a very poor manager for the Toon but did not do as much damage as Dalglish, whose dross we are still trying to clear up. No mention I see of the entertainment factor in the matches under the two managers. Watching TSM's team cling doggedly onto a 0-1 defeat was cringe-making. Gullit's team did manage the occasional attack.

The jury has been discharged ages ago on this one. (-;

-- Anonymous, August 13, 2000