The LMA Manager of the Year betting should make for an interesting category for you to look at. This award is handed out to the manager, who the League Managers’ Association thinks has made the best use of resources. This applies to all managers from across the top four tiers of English football. This is not necessarily handed out to the football manager who has achieved and won the most, but who has performed the best with what he has at his disposal. Which manager has gotten the most bang for his buck?
Topping the list of candidates, is Swansea’s Brendan Rodgers, who is one of the brightest young managers in the game. After their promotion to the Premier League, Rodgers has not given up on their exciting brand of football, and that slick football has made them one of popular spectacles of the Premier League. There just has not been any sacrifice of style in order to try and scrap just for survival. Rodgers has produced so much more than that with Swansea, they play an open, attacking and fluent passing game, something which newly relegated teams don’t think will work in their first season in the Premier League. Not for Rodgers’ Swansea. They will be in the Premier League next season and have something huge to build on at the Liberty Stadium. They haven’t spent much, but Rodgers has shopped wisely in the loan market, making Swansea superb value for money.
Newcastle’s Alan Pardew is arguably extremely deserving of this, because he walked into a tough situation at St James Park, and has made the Magpies a top six club. There could be European football on the horizon next season for the Magpies if they keep going to the end of the season, and Newcastle’s status in the EPL this season has been totally unexpected. Pardew deserves a medal just for uniting a very fractured club, and turning sceptical fans around when he got the job. Most of all he picked up Demba Ba on a free transfer, and got Papiss Cisse for a bargain of around £7 million. Fantastic job done by Pardew in the north east and deserves recognition.
Norwich’s Paul Lambert has done an amazing job at Carrow Road, taking them from League One to Premier League safety in three seasons. Remarkably, the hard work done by Norwich this season in the Premier League was largely by the squad which won them promotion last season, and Lambert has really not splashed the cash around. Lambert seems a bit tight fisted with what he will pay out, but he has taken Norwich to a solid, mid-table Premier League squad. Lambert flies under the radar a bit, but he has done wonders with Norwich in a very organised and efficient manner, without spending cash.
How about David Moyes at Everton? The Scot has been there now for ten years, and once again, without no budget and a very limited squad, they have upstaged city rivals Liverpool. Moyes is so well respected and probably the most famous manager for making the most of what he has at his disposal. Season after season he has kept Everton competitive without having the spending power of Liverpool, and Moyes really knows how to work the transfer, loan and free agent markets to keep his squad tight always has a keen eye for a bargain, like Nikica Jelavic. Deserves all the plaudits he can get for the work he has done on Merseyside.
You can look at other names like Sir Alex Ferguson, who looks set to win the Premier League title again, with probably one of the most average squads he has had at his disposal. Or Tottenham’s Harry Redknapp, who has transformed Spurs into a top four side through a lot of shrewd business. However, the LMA Manager of the Year betting is likely to fall to one of the newly promoted Premier League managers for producing survival with style on a budget.
LMA Manager of the Year Betting
Brendan Rodgers: 7/5 at Bet Victor
Alan Pardew: 4/1 at William Hill
Paul Lambert: 8/1 at Bet Victor
Sir Alex Ferguson: 8/1 at William Hill
David Moyes: 10/1 at Bet Victor
