From Bruce to Hodgson and our hero Jones: Five wildly unpopular Premier League managers | OneFootball

We’re still not over Southampton sacking Nathan Jones. Especially as they’re predictably still quite sh*t. He got them cup wins over Manchester City; now they’re losing cup games to Grimsby. Call that progress? But we understand why Southampton fans hated him. He was making their club a laughing stock. It’s of no interest or relevance to them that we enjoyed the laughing.

So here he is on a list with some other managers their own fans loved to hate for assorted reasons ranging from the magnificently petty to the entirely justified but that nearly always involved some degree of ‘they were a bit crap’.

George Graham (Tottenham) An inexplicable move that managed to irritate three fanbases in one. Spurs fans were horrified at the prospect of the Arsenal legend and never truly warmed to “the man in the raincoat”, Arsenal fans felt an inevitable sense of betrayal, while Leeds fans raged at Graham for the way he turned his back on a club that had rescued him from the post-bung-gate managerial scrapheap.

Amusingly, given his more recent predilection for hiring unloved former Chelsea managers, Daniel Levy’s first act upon his arrival as Spurs chairman was the instant crowd-pleaser of replacing Graham with Spurs legend Glenn Hoddle. Who was also a former Chelsea manager. But a beloved one, that’s the key difference Levy has since forgotten, and why he has never replicated the success of Hoddle’s appointment despite his frequent attempts to chase that high.

Only joking. Hoddle was just as bad as Graham. Worse probably. Just without the baggage. Or with slightly different baggage at least. There are several Spurs managers who could go on this list of course, but with no others was the hatred and distrust so instant and widespread and visceral. It’s also objectively hilarious that Graham achieved what only one manager has managed in the 22 years since his sacking and won a trophy. Equally funny is that the one manager in those 22 years to win a trophy is Juande Ramos. What a club, honestly.

Steve Bruce (Newcastle) The Newcastle fans absolutely hated a man they dubbed a “tactically inept cabbage head” and the feeling seemed to be mutual, especially when some intrepid soul dug up his salty quotes when Sunderland manager and Newcastle fans mocked him: “It was typical of that club’s etiquette.”

Mainly, though, the Newcastle fans just hated the shit and dreary football teams Bruce put out and his perceived role as spokescabbage and cover for the hated Mike Ashley regime.

“I was under no illusions whatsoever when I arrived at Newcastle,” Bruce said to FourFourTwo after leaving Newcastle. “I was becoming part of an unpopular regime and knew I’d be associated with Mike Ashley from day one. And I was replacing Rafael Benitez, who was loved by the fans.

“So I expected criticism and yes, some of it was justified.” Which part was justified? Cabbage head, or tactically inept?

Eddie Howe has certainly had an enormous amount of assistance from Newcastle’s new and happily unproblematic ownership, but the speed and scale of the improvement he was able to instantly bring to the team suggests the Newcastle fans were at least right about something.

Rafa Benitez (Chelsea and also Everton a bit) It’s been a mixed bag in English football for Benitez. Venerated at Liverpool, adored at Newcastle, viewed with suspicion and eventual enmity at Everton but outright hated by the otherwise cuddly and lovable Chelsea fans.

Part of the problem was his feud with Jose Mourinho, the Chelsea fans’ spirit animal, and the things Benitez had said about Chelsea buying success. He also mocked the little flags that Chelsea used to give out to fans as souvenirs, and questioned the fans’ passion. This was all annoying enough for Chelsea when they had Peak Mourinho and could at least console themselves with having the superior manager. Then they had to put up with both disliking and not rating Benitez while also dealing with the fact he was now their manager. It must have been confusing.

Benitez used the aftermath of a routine FA Cup fifth-round win over Middlesbrough to aim a premeditated swipe at both the board and the fans. The board came under fire for labelling him “interim” manager, while his verdict on the fans’ chants against him and in favour of Frank Lampard due to a largely imagined apparent conflict between the two was clear.

“This group of fans are not doing any favours to the team, while they are wasting time singing and preparing banners. They have to concentrate on supporting the team. Every game they continue singing and preparing banners they are wasting time. They have to take responsibility. They need to support the team.”

Presumably they did so, because Chelsea ended up winning the Europa League to complete a clean sweep of the three major European trophies. But Benitez was right about the homemade banners, which were often hilariously naff.

Roy Hodgson (Liverpool) He’s a good manager and a good man, but he was never, ever right for Liverpool and it was never, ever going to work.

The straw that broke the camel’s back came after a 1-0 home defeat to Wolves, when Hodgson checked all other possibilities for Liverpool’s poor performance and it came down to the negativity of Liverpool supporters.

The Anfield atmosphere was pretty poisonous by this point, but it was a bit chicken and egg. Either way, Hodgson was appointed in July and out of a job by January 8.

Fans had initially been opposed to his appointment because it came at the expense of Kenny Dalglish whose unexpected play for the job seemed to throw everyone. And it was Kenny who rode in on his white horse to rescue Liverpool from the wreckage of Hodgson’s brief but heroically bad tenure.

Nathan Jones (Southampton) We will never, ever forgive Southampton for binning Jones so swiftly after realising they had made a catastrophic mistake and turned their club into a punchline. We barely scratched the surface of what he could have achieved. Not as a football manager, that was going to be awful, but as a source of endless amusement to the rest of us.

He was a fascinating mix of skin-deep performative confidence that masked a far more profound uncertainty about whether he was really up to it. Coupled with a flare, intentional or otherwise, for bon mots it turned him into a kind of Brendan Rodgers/Tim Sherwood/David Brent hybrid which pretty much makes him our favourite man in football.

our tragicomic hero for nothing we’re going to fall out.