10 Worst Southampton Managers Of The Modern Era

Southampton may be riding high in the Premier League right now under new manager Ronald Koeman, but Saints fans have had got used to never being too settled. After Ted Bates (“Mr. Southampton”) and his protege-successor Lawrie McMenemy built the team up through the 1960s, 70s and 80s, establishing Saints as a top flight club, winning the FA Cup and finishing as high as second in the league over a thirty year period in which they were the club’s only managers, the thirty years since have been far less stable.
In that time 24 managers have passed through the doors of The Dell and latterly the St. Mary’s Stadium, including three in as many years recently. Those thirty years have been something of a rollercoaster of success and failure with both types of manager often leaving as quickly as they arrived.
While Southampton have done well with the run of Nigel Adkins, Mauricio Pochettino and Koeman, many of their predecessors did more to damage the legacy of Bates and McMenemy than to build on it. This list counts down ten of the worst incumbents of the Southampton hot seat over the last thirty years.