Top 10 best available managers features Conte, Zidane, Flick and… Frank Lampard

These are the managers that those currently under the cosh need to be most wary of. Even if most of them seem to be very choosy over their next project…

10) Frank Lampard
Having made a faff of reigns at Everton and Chelsea, Lampard was a surprising name in the frame for Rangers before, quite sensibly, they opted for ex-Monaco boss Philippe Clement.

But, somehow, Lampard still continues to be linked with decent jobs. Lyon were said to be keen to talk to him before giving the role to Fabio Grosso.

9) Jesse Marsch
You might laugh but he managed Leeds for pretty much a season and that season would have kept them in the Premier League with ease.

Out of a job since being sacked by the Yorkshiremen, Marsch appears to be enjoying his time away. He turned his nose up at Leicester’s offer amid links with the United States job. He’s done plenty of travelling and still has enough credit in the bank from his reigns at RBs Salzburg and Leipzig to be choosy about his next gig.

8) Ruud van Nistelrooy
Winning the Dutch cup and taking PSV Eindhoven to second in the Eredivisie with 2.20 Points Per Match in his first managerial season isn’t bad going. Reports of tension between Van Nistelrooy and his players and a ‘strained relationship’ with his assistants isn’t a great addendum to his CV though.

7) Oliver Glasner
“I accept the decision of the club management, which has been explained to me in a reasonable way,” said Glasner, which was incredibly reasonable considering that Eintracht Frankfurt were dispensing of his services just a year after he had led the German club to the Europa League, their first European trophy in over 40 years.

Glasner – once strongly linked with Tottenham – rejected the chance to speak to Rangers and seems ready to sit it out, watching basketball in the United States, until he gets an offer he can’t refuse: “I haven’t had any withdrawal symptoms from football yet. I only watch football when there’s nothing else to do which is very, very rare. Every day, I am very relaxed. I feel like I am on holiday each day. The time will come when I return to management, I will feel it. It would need to be a project that excites me again.”

6) Graham Potter
The shredding of a managerial reputation took just a few short months at Chelsea in a marriage that always looked absolutely doomed, but there’s nothing like being replaced by someone entirely incapable to restore that reputation.

With it now evident that peak-Fergie himself would have struggled at Chelsea last season, Potter’s credibility remains just-about intact. So what next? He is third-favourite to take over from Erik ten Hag at Manchester United which seems… unlikely. The ex-Brighton boss is said to be willing to wait for the right job having rejected opportunities at Lyon and Rangers.

5) Joachim Low
The German is one of only 21 managers to have won the World Cup. But no-one has given him a route back into club football just yet after he stepped down in 2021 from the Germany post which he occupied for 15 years – the longest international reign for a European nation.

“The will is there,” Low said a year ago. “I would like to coach a club again. That would be fun for me.”

Low ‘studied one or two offers’ and was heavily linked with the Fenerbahce job, as well as returns to the international stage with Brazil, Turkey and Belgium, but his last club position remains the manager’s role at Austria Vienna, which he stepped away from almost 20 years ago.

4) Julen Lopetegui
The former Real Madrid boss walked away from Wolves, apparently in tears, when it was made clear to him that it would be ‘impossible to develop this project’ due to the financial strife at Molineux. So Lopetegui will be seeking more watertight assurances when he considers his next job.

Where might that be? “You never know what is going to happen tomorrow, but if you asked me my preference, my answer is very clear – it’s England, and the Premier League,” Lopetegui told The Athletic earlier this month.

3) Hansi Flick 
Flick is still licking his wounds after being shown the door by Germany in September after overseeing just 12 wins from his 25 matches in charge of his country since replacing Low in 2021.

His record with Bayern Munich was far better, winning 70 out of 86 games in the hot-seat at the Allianz Arena. In 18 months, he inspired Bayern to win the Treble in 2019/20. And, as Julian Nagelsmann showed, success at Bayern isn’t guaranteed. When Flick decides to get back into work, he’ll surely have offers from the Bundesliga and across Europe.

2) Zinedine Zidane
Is Zizou a great coach, or just a great Real Madrid coach?

That isn’t to denigrate his achievements at the Bernabeu. Only Carlo Ancelotti has won the Champions League more often than the three occasions Zidane has lifted it. And the Frenchman stockpiled his winners’ medals in consecutive seasons. Add a couple of La Liga titles and Zidane’s record is unimpeachable.

Still, though, we’d love to see Zidane take another job. He seems to be very choosy – fair f***s, he’s certainly earned that right – having been linked with PSG, Manchester United and Chelsea in the past. He has spoken about his level of English being a barrier to managing in the Premier League, but we all want to Zidane to take the chance to prove he’s brilliant beyond the Bernabeu. There has been talk of taking over at Marseille if OM are taken over by Saudis.

1) Antonio Conte
Yes, it got toxic at Tottenham in the end but he still made them their fourth-best side in the Premier League under his reign. Add that to a Premier League title at Chelsea and he is still the sixth-best Premier League manager of all time.

But that undoubted success pales in comparison to what he has achieved in Italy. Four Serie A titles and a PPG record of 2.26 make him the best of all time in Italy and Conte fancies a return home, having name-checked Roma and Napoli specifically: “Those are two clubs that I’d like to try for the passion fans have. I hope one day I’ll have a chance to live this experience.”

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