Daniel Gregory: Is John Carver the worst Premier League boss ever?

This prompted me to ask the question, is Carver the worst manager in Premier League history?

Don’t get me wrong, he had little time and scope to really implement change at Newcastle United after Alan Pardew left in January.

Most managers would struggle in such a short period of time, but at a club like Newcastle, this would be almost impossible.

Hamstrung by a catastrophic owner and a structure that hampers progress or ambition at St James’ Park, any manager will struggle to bring success to the Toon Army until things are changed behind the scenes.

Having said that, Carver’s record is truly pathetic.

Carver leaves the club after a dismal three wins in 20 games, a win percentage of 15%.

He didn’t help himself as he stunned reporters when he stated he believed he was ‘the best coach in the Premier League’.

That must have tickled the likes of Jose Mourinho, Louis van Gaal and Arsene Wenger as well as all the gathered press.

A goal difference of -18 in that period is the final nail in the coffin for Carver’s CV.

He has some competition for the accolade though.

Paul Jewell’s infamous winless run of 24 games has him up there, but he had a woeful Derby side.

Mick McCarthy endured a terrible time at Sunderland, taking only 10 points from 27 games and former Southampton gaffer Steve Wigley, had a stunning win percentage of 6.2% from his 16 games in charge. That just pips Roy McFarland’s 9.1% at Bolton Wanderers and John Gorman’s superb five wins from 42 games, yielding a win percentage of 11.9%.

The old saying of ‘top players make top managers’ can be put straight in the bin after seeing that Paul Ince and Tony Adams both failed superbly.

Ince (17.6%) and Adams (12.5%) failed to emulate their efforts on the pitch.

And who can forget the foreign bosses who came and went quickly.

Wimbledon’s wellington-boot wearing Norweigan boss Egil Olsen started the club’s demise as he took them down, Christian Gross’ tenure at Spurs started with a terrible press conference and just got worse and the club also tried Jacques Santini and Juande Ramos, neither of whom succeeded.

Mention must go to Iain Dowie, who despite a disastrous and costly period in charge of Charlton Athletic, still seems to be linked with any job that comes up to this day, while Mickey Adams, Chris Hutchings, Terry Connor and Aidy Boothroyd were all flops at the highest level.

It is very tough to pick out an outstanding candidate and I’m sure if you asked 10 people, you could conceivably get 10 different answers.

I’m pointing the finger at former Fulham boss Lawrie Sanchez though.

Chris Coleman kept Fulham up between 2003-2007, for most of that period on a small budget.

For whatever reason, Sanchez came in and was given a £25million war chest.

In came a host of flops and the rest is history.

Carver is certainly up there with the worst ever, but he’s just pipped as he had no money or as much time as Sanchez. Tough call though.

Who would you pick? Tweet me @mrdanielgregory