Shoot Says: Forget Mourinho, Guardiola and Conte, Ranieri is the Premier League’s ‘super manager’

In their seminal work of sports writing; Soccernomics, the journalist Simon Kuper and the economist, Stefan Syzmanski, famously concluded that the influence of a manager on the ultimate league position of their side, could be summarised as minimal at best.

By far, they found, the greatest indicator where a team would finish in any given season, was their wage bill, respective to that of their rivals. Over the past 30 years, across Europe’s top leagues, the team with the highest wage bill has reliably finished first – it’s that simple.

Increasingly however, it has become a key aspect of British football culture to extol the influence of its coaches. When a team performs well, their positive results are inevitably ascribed to the tactical nous and charisma of the manager; whereas a bad season is usually blamed on the naivety or the inexperience of the man in-charge.

2015/16 Premier League champions: Leicester City – Photo: Simon Stacpoole / Offside.

This is an especially interesting topic to consider ahead of the upcoming season. Since its inception, the Premier League has always hosted a wealth of managerial talent, though surely never to the extent that it will feature in the 2016/17 campaign.

The arrival to the division of Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp and Antonio Conte, as well as the recent accomplishments of Claudio Ranieri, Ronald Koeman and Mauricio Pochettino means that arguably more than 50% of the continent’s biggest coaching names will be working in England next year.

So what is the significance of this? Given the findings of Kuper and Syzmanski, how much of a difference is it reasonable to expect these elite coaches to make at their respective clubs? In each case it’s surely fair to say that each of them has made their name in large part through the strength of their character, and their visible desire to simply work harder than their peers.

But in a league with so many hard workers and great minds, in which the majority of top teams have bigger budgets for transfers and wages than they know what to do with, it seems unlikely that any one coach will lead his side to victory next year through strength of character alone, or simply having more cash than his rivals.

Mourinho guided Manchester United to their 21st Community Shield on Sunday – Photo: Marc Atkins / Offside.

There are other individual factors to consider also. How will Jose Mourinho, the man who has instigated and thrived upon conflict his entire career, cope with having so many sworn enemies to hate at once?

How will Guardiola, the ultimate perfectionist, keep his head in a league where regular upsets are the norm?

How will Klopp and Conte keep their sides in condition to compete over an entire season, given the intensity of their methods, in what is famously Europe’s most aggressive and fast-paced competition?

The answer may well lie in the Premier League’s very recent history. The likelihood of him repeating his astonishing achievements last season may be extremely small, but regardless, what Ranieri was able to accomplish with Leicester last year may well have set the blueprint for managerial success in the Premier League for a long time to come.

It would be fair to say the key qualities of the Italian, with which he was able to guide his side to their extraordinary title win, were significantly more understated, than those which have contributed to the relative successes of his peers.

Title-winning boss, Ranieri – Photo: Simon Stacpoole / Offside.

From the outside it seemed the crucial features of his leadership last season, were his emphasis on teamwork over the indulgence of his best players; his focus on the overall balance of his squad over any fine-tuned tweaking with his system; his stoicism in defeat; his level-headedness in victory; his calmness in the face of any negative or pessimistic press; and at all times, his refusal to consider or comment upon the fortunes or performances of any side but his own. From gameweek one to 38, he was class and reserve personified.

Without having the visible passion of Conte, Guardiola’s sophistication of ideas, or Mourinho’s bristling motivation to defeat his rivals, he was able to achieve something arguably greater than any of his new opponents have in their exemplary careers to date.

And come next May, more likely than not, the victorious manager won’t be lifting the trophy because he was the hardest worker, or the most passionate motivator, or the most ingenious tactician, but because he was the one who was best able to emulate the qualities of Ranieri – the unlikely face leading the Premier League into the era of the super manager.