Very Specific Football Question No.29: Which manager has the best hair?

Premier League managers scientifically ranked from 1st to 20th by the quality of their coiffure…

Eddie Howe
Team: Bournemouth

Tidy but with a hint of hip, Howe’s is the perfect weave for the modern manager who wants to be taken seriously. A versatile cut that feels equally at home hanging out with the players in a trendy bar, or sitting down for a board meeting with the club suits. This effect is achieved in spite of the hair’s reluctance to part naturally in the spot that Howe wants it to.
Rating: 8th

Mauricio Pochettino
Team: Tottenham

An effortlessly bushy mass tamed with regular trims, the Spurs manager’s nimble fibres are the envy of fortysomethings everywhere. Since arriving in the Premier League, the Argentine has instilled in his barber the same level of discipline he has injected into his young team. But despite efforts to keep the mane looking businesslike, a shameless mullet-ponytail of the 1990s is a warning of its terrifying capabilities.
Rating: 5th

Louis van Gaal
Team: Man Utd

Atop the head of a twentysomething web designer on a night out in Manchester’s northern quarter, LVG’s barnet would fit in seamlessly. But on the 64-year-old Dutchman it looks hopelessly out of place, like the misguided attempt of a chubby, awkward teenager to revamp his image ahead of the school disco. The kind of hair you can only pull off when you’re winning every week.
Rating: 17th

Sam Allardyce
Team: Sunderland

A chiselled brute of a man who one imagines will still maintain a strong sex appeal deep into his retirement, Big Sam could put a dead badger on his head and still have something about him. His chosen cut - a meat-and-potatoes short back and sides elevated by a playful quiff - adds a classy veneer to a solid package. Although at its essence the style shares some similarities with Van Gaal’s, it sits far more comfortably on Allardyce’s face, which is approximately three times’ wider than the Dutchman’s.
Rating: 3rd

Ronald Koeman
Team: Southampton

Since he was a younger man spraying Hollywood passes around the Nou Camp and scoring free-kicks against England, Koeman’s hair has lost none of its curious tendency to annoy with its slick-backed auburn smugness. Yet this is just how the Dutchman likes it. There is something aggressively confident about Koeman’s gingerness, rare among non-Scottish redheads, that has no doubt contributed to his success as a player and coach.
Rating: 6th

Alex Neil
Team: Norwich

The 34-year-old has accepted his premature baldness with a grudging dignity, carrying the air of a man who has told himself that hair would be an inconvenience. “All that combing and conditioning, being bald leaves so much more time in the day to get things done,” you can imagine the Scot telling impressionable youngsters. Will occasionally allow the rear quadrant of his head to gather a hopeful shadow, but will remove it at any given moment without sentimentality.
Rating: 16th

Remi Garde
Team: Aston Villa

Despite boasting impressive density and hue for man of 49, there is a lack of imagination and creativity to the Frenchman’s cut that appears to have transmitted its energies to his players. Looks like he should be going to a job in the city, rather than at Villa Park. He probably wishes he was.
Rating: 11th

Quique Sanchez Flores
Team: Watford

The Spaniard’s chic hair is just one element of a confident package that oozes elegance on a level rarely seen in Premier League history. Versatile in shape, tone and texture, the Flores coiffure is equally alluring wet or dry, depending on his mood. A serious contender.
Rating: 2nd

Claudio Ranieri
Team: Leicester

The Italian’s non-descript plume has provided the perfect foundation to allow his Foxes side to progress without unwanted distractions. It is the haircut of the man who values style over substance; work ethic over flamboyance; sense of humour over good looks. No sooner does one see Ranieri’s hair, it is forgotten.
Rating: 12th

Alan Pardew
Team: Crystal Palace

The fetching salt-and-pepper effect of yesteryear has become less peppery with each passing season and is now as exclusively white as an audience at a Donald Trump campaign rally. Aside from a brief experiment with a spiky central area during his mid-life crisis while at West Ham, Pards has stayed resolutely loyal to the left-sided parting.
Rating: 14th

Slaven Bilic
Team: West Ham

Hammers fans have enjoyed the Croatian’s sharp cut, despite it being painfully obvious that its days are numbered. A thinning patchiness has been managed expertly with careful work in the salon, but imminent baldness is an inevitable as Andy Carroll’s next injury. A fulsome beard in the 2014/15 season showed that Bilic is prepared to cultivate strong facial hair to offset any issues on the top of his head.
Rating: 10th

Mark Hughes
Team: Stoke

Its glorious history, including a luxurious 1980s perm that the Bangles would have been proud of, commands respect. And while time has gradually sucked the bounce out of Sparky’s barnet, pleasant grey waves remain, like the gentle crash of surf onto a moonlit beach. You still would.
Rating: 7th

Arsene Wenger
Team: Arsenal

A man who has been committed to the same style, week-in week-out, since he arrived in north London 20 years ago - and not just on the pitch. Wenger’s hairdo is impossible to describe with words, or with gestures, aside from the all-encompassing term “grey”. There is a side-parting in there somewhere, but nobody can quite remember where or why. Nevertheless, the Frenchman boasts impressive thickness for a man his age.
Rating: 9th

Jurgen Klopp
Team: Liverpool

The Reds coach is well-known for having excellent hair - his strong blonde locks evoking a world champion surfer, or a German porn star at the top of his game. But since arriving at Anfield, Klopp has opted for a less flamboyant look than the flowing mane of his Dortmund days. This is a great shame, but it is still a formidable barnet and one feels there is more to come.
Rating: 4th

Tony Pulis
Team: West Brom

There is not much to discuss here, especially since the Baggies boss normally keeps his slaphead covered. But the tragedy of Pulis’ fondness for caps is that he looks far better without one. Unlike some men, baldness suits the Welshman to a tee - he has the perfect-shaped head for it. Baseball caps, on the other hand, make him look like the kind of man who shouts at strangers outside an off licence.
Rating: 15th

Francesco Guidolin
Team: Swansea

The most recent entrant to this list could barely be less exciting. An uninspiring collection of grey wisps are the sole occupants of a frontal wasteland, with a solid rear thatch offering little in the way of consolation. Could be transplanted wholesale onto Claudio Ranieri’s head without anyone noticing. Alan Curtis’s hair is better.
Rating: 13th

RELEGATION ZONE

Roberto Martinez
Team: Everton

The battle against a receding hairline is not one a man can win, and 2015/16 was the season the Spaniard accepted his defeat. The optimistic front knot of recent campaigns has finally been retired in favour of a sombre plateau - an always-difficult transition that appears have had a detrimental effect on results.
Rating: 18th

Guus Hiddink
Team: Chelsea

Being hairier than many of his youthful rivals has given the Premier League’s oldest manager a well-justified swagger, but complacency has crept in - resulting in the Dutchman overseeing an unforgivable failure of quantity over quality. In almost 70 years on this earth, it appears Hiddink has still not worked out where his hair should be parted, resulting in an unsettling central mound that refuses to play by the rules. Trying to decipher the concept behind Hiddink’s hairstyle is a painful, nay impossible, task.
Rating: 19th

Steve McClaren
Team: Newcastle

A vaporous ginger monstrosity defined by a lonely, dismal tuft attempting to do the work of an entire head of hair - with inevitably catastrophic results. The cluster of gaunt strands comprising the tuft each resembles a dying creature begging to be put out of its misery, yet McClaren persists with them, refusing to acknowledge the hopelessness of the situation - and now it is too late to save him. And yes, we’re still talking about his hair.
Rating: 20th

CHAMPION

Manuel Pellegrini
Team: Man City

Transport your mind back to the swinging sixties, pop a tab of LSD, stare at Manuel’s hair and feel yourself drift away. The Chilean’s full-bodied, rock star weave belies his advancing years and softly spoken demeanour, nonchalantly framing his otherwise haggard face without the aid of products or effort. A 100 per cent natural, heroic mop that shows no sign of slowing down.
Rating: 1st

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