‘Big Six’ coaches all winners as elite pull further away

With all of the Premier League’s superstar managers able to claim success of some sort this season, the rest of top flight should be worried

When Arsène Wenger strides into Arsenal’s famous oak-panelled boardroom today it will be fascinating to discover what attitude he adopts.

For this is the season which started with questions over which of the Premier League’s ‘Big Six’ managers would miss out, and the ramifications of that, and ended with each of them able to argue that they have been a winner.

It means that assessments of the performances of those managers, and their clubs, take on an almost legalistic nature: you construct your argument and make your case. Are you a Wenger-ista or a Klopp-ite, for example? The evidence is there either way. It depends on what you want to believe.

Winning the FA Cup means that Wenger goes armed into that boardroom, where his future will be discussed and a new two-year contract will or will not be ratified, with a shift in the mood around him and

Arsenal. It was the same last Wednesday when Manchester United won the Europa League and Jose Mourinho, who was in danger of losing face, not his job, was able to taunt the “poets” who have missed out on collecting silverware – although his argument would have felt hollow had winning that competition not brought with it the prize of entry into the Champions League. But it did. So who won? Who has had the most successful season? And did no one, in the end, miss out? The cold reality of Arsenal dropping into the Europa League, with the prospect of away trips to Arka Gdynia or Zorya Luhansk, will bite soon enough, but for now there is an afterglow to bask in.

It may mask greater problems, but Wenger has always been adept at constructing his arguments, and will do so again around three FA Cups in four seasons, around not ever finishing outside the top five and around one of his favourite words: potential. Undoubtedly the biggest winner has been Antonio Conte at Chelsea. Taking the club from 10th place to winning the league in his first campaign in English football, setting a record of 30 league victories, changing the shape of the team and their outlook has been hugely impressive. Yes, but… what about the benefit of not having been in Europe? And what about failing again in a cup competition (it is a curiosity that beyond the Italian Super Cup Conte has yet to win one)?

And so it continues. Mauricio Pochettino and Tottenham Hotspur? They have succeeded by finishing second with a remarkable 86 points, with a budget far smaller than their rivals and playing some wonderful football with a vibrant young team. But they bombed in the Champions League, they quickly went out of the Europa League and, yes, Pochettino has still to win a trophy.

The arguments continue with Pep Guardiola at Manchester City and Jürgen Klopp at Liverpool. Guardiola is the highest-paid manager in the league, City spent heavily last summer and yet they have won nothing – the first time that has happened to him. City finished third, Guardiola has altered their style of play and there have been brilliant moments, but he did not win a thing.

Klopp at Liverpool? His team played some of the most exciting football before the turn of the year and there was hope then that they might sustain a title challenge, especially when they defeated City at home and looked set to stay the pace. But they did not and ended up clinging on to fourth place by beating Middlesbrough at Anfield in a game in which they were fortunate not to go behind, when they should have conceded a penalty.

Mourinho, despite winning the EFL Cup, becoming the first United manager to win a trophy in his first season, would have failed had he not added the Europa League. He gambled, with United’s league position going from fourth to fifth to sixth in successive seasons despite their vast outlay, but the gamble worked.

Which brings us back to Wenger. He won the FA Cup. He had one lifeboat to cling to and reached it. Just like Mourinho and Klopp, Guardiola and maybe even Pochettino.

So it was a desperate scramble beyond Chelsea’s unwavering progress to the title, but it is one that ended up with everyone claiming that they were a winner. Or at least that they had not lost.

A personal opinion? The cup triumphs of Mourinho and Wenger masked poor campaigns. A manager cannot bank on cup success and has to reflect on the body of work he has produced over the season. And, in truth, that is what clubs look at, too. The league table is a far better indicator, especially as Pochettino finished 11 points ahead of Wenger and 17 in front of Mourinho.

But, of course, there is the counter-argument to that. The game is about winning medals and trophies, and Mourinho and Wenger have those again this season, while Pochettino, Guardiola and Klopp do not.

So everyone is a winner? Maybe that, above all, shows we have an unparalleled group of top managers in the Premier League, with Ronald Koeman, at Everton, pushing to be included also. He was a winner, too, with his team qualifying for the Europa League as the top seven opened a 15-point gap on the rest of the league.

So on reflection it is the rest who are the losers now, facing a reality of little else but fighting against relegation. It is hard to see the elite of superclubs with their supermanagers ever being caught again as they share out the prizes.