Premier League newbie managers ranked from Arbeloa to Pep 2.0

The summer saw almost half of the Premier League install new managers, and with six games gone, they have all had time to get their feet under the desk.

From returning managers to brand-new faces, there was a lot of change in the dugouts of the Premier League but not every appointment has worked out well. Indeed, some figure highly in the sack race.

Here are the nine bosses that were appointed in the summer ranked:

9) Alvaro Arbeloa – Fulham
“I have coached the best team in the world,” Arbeloa said when asked whether he is feeling the pressure, perhaps hoping we had all forgotten why he got that job and how it ended.

Arbeloa was given an uphill task with the departure of Raul Jimenez and Harry Wilson but Fulham have been poor and are at the bottom of the table.

But did anyone expect anything different? Arbeloa’s managerial experience consisted of a year with Madrid’s B team and then a few months with the first team, so why did the Fulham board think he could replace Marco Silva?

It has unsurprisingly turned out badly and he looks one result away from the sack.

8) Marco Rose – Bournemouth
Rose gets a little leeway in that a) he is new to the league and b) Andoni Iraola took some time to get going at Bournemouth, but the worrying thing is that performances have looked worse as the weeks go on rather than better.

Bournemouth are without a win and with the return of European football this week, Rose does not have a huge amount of time on the training ground to turn it around.

Some comfort can be found in the fixture list with Bournemouth having already played three of the big six but the Chelsea defeat was particularly sloppy.

Rose has not been helped by injuries with Alex Scott joining Junior Kroupi and Justin Kluivert in the treatment room.

7) Oliver Glasner – Nottingham Forest
Forest are paying Glasner £13m a year to manage the team and surely expected better than this.

The club has won one game and two more draws put them 15th in the table but that may be something of a false position because they have not been too bad.

They really should have beaten Crystal Palace and yet somehow came away with a 3-1 defeat, but there are at least signs it is coming together.

Scoring goals is the most immediate problem with only Spurs having found the net fewer times, but you would back Glasner to figure it out. On that salary, you would expect him to do it sooner rather than later.

6) Pierre Sage – Crystal Palace
Palace create a lot of chances – only Brighton have created more – but in contrast to their M23 rivals, they do like to miss a lot of them.

Palace have scuffed 15 of their 21 big chances so far this season with only Fulham having a worse record, and with one clean sheet all season, their football has felt quite frantic.

Before the weekend, Palace’s only victory had come against Fulham and they were incredibly lucky to win against Forest, who could have been out of sight on a different day.

Sage has identified a need to strengthen defensively but he’s got to travel to his former club Lyon this week and then Besiktas the following Thursday, meaning he has little time to work on anything.

It’s gone okay to start with for this highly rated manager but there are very clear holes to be filled.

5) Matthias Jaissle – Newcastle United
Considering the sceptical predictions made about a Newcastle that had seen two of its best players leave, Jaissle has done pretty well.

There has been no catastrophic implosion. There has been no relegation scrap (yet). There has been no doom and gloom.

Newcastle have had an okay if not great start to the season; they’ve got two of each result and while beating Spurs and Hull has been good, getting smashed 4-1 by both Leeds and Coventry is very bad.

They clearly have a defensive issue but do not have the strike power a la Chelsea to fire their way out of trouble.

Jaissle has to address that and the return of Dan Burn should help, but 11th is fine for a new manager.

4) Andoni Iraola – Liverpool
Liverpool fans were warned that Iraola’s teams can take a while to hit their stride, but you’re never going to get as much leeway at Anfield as Bournemouth.

Defensively they look good – they conceded just four before a City game when the trio of goals came when a man down – but they also do not score a huge amount, especially for a team that has spent over £300m on forward players.

Twelve teams in the league have scored more and a 0-0 draw to Fulham was a particularly disappointing result.

Yes, the club has been hit by an attack-focused injury crisis but Iraola needs to work out how to get the best out of Wirtz, Barcola and Isak if they are to start moving up the table.

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3) Xabi Alonso – Chelsea
Alonso is levels above Liam Rosenior as a manager so was always going to feel like an improvement, and it would be fair to say Chelsea have been about par for the course with 10 points from six games.

They are one of the best attacking sides in the country but have the worst goal difference of any side in the top seven, showing how poor they are at the back.

That will be the real test of Alonso in weeks to come and if Chelsea have ambitions to qualify for the Champions League or even go for the title, they have to become more defensively solid.

So far so okay for Alonso, who has them in sixth, but Chelsea have also had a kind fixture list to start the season.

2) Gary O’Neil – Ipswich Town
I will be the first to admit that I did not see this working out and cards on the table, I support Ipswich.

I was not overly convinced by O’Neil’s credentials despite his two successful survivals; his most recent Premier League experience was a loss to the side he now manages while in charge of Wolves.

But it is to O’Neil’s credit that he has made Ipswich a lot more solid and able to win Premier League matches. He is not solely responsible for that – the club spent a lot of money in the summer and have learned lessons from the last time in this division – but O’Neil has won games that Kieran McKenna would not.

It is a very promising start and Ipswich are already only one win away from their entire tally from the 2024/25 season.

1) Enzo Maresca – Manchester City
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Perhaps it is because he has the same beard and bald combo but you could be forgiven for forgetting City have a new man on the sidelines.

City do play slightly differently under Maresca than Guardiola; Maresca’s City are a lot more rigid in a 4-1-4-1 compared to Guardiola’s 4-3-3, but the result looks very similar: six games and six wins.

But Maresca’s biggest challenge has come off the pitch rather than on it. With the CEO and chairman hiding behind pre-recorded messages, Maresca was offered up as the public face of City’s cheating and whether he knew or not before he joined, it has been his job to ensure the team did not fall apart.

They passed their first test with a 3-0 win away at Liverpool and City fans could not ask for more from the new man.

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