Best Manager to have managed Saints?


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Is this thread about the best manager to have managed Saints, or the best Saints manager, Two different questions?

As i said before, Coyle is the best manager to have managed Saints, wasn't around for Ormonds Era so impossible to judge him.

Best Saints manager would have to be Sturrock. Made the best Saints team of my era, although Clark done wonders with it

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Is this thread about the best manager to have managed Saints, or the best Saints manager, Two different questions?

As i said before, Coyle is the best manager to have managed Saints, wasn't around for Ormonds Era so impossible to judge him.

Best Saints manager would have to be Sturrock. Made the best Saints team of my era, although Clark done wonders with it

I was asking who is the Best Manager to have managed Saints, but I'm enjoying the debate!

Sturrock did well down south, Totten took Falkirk to Scottish Cup Final and Ormond lead Scotland to the World Cup.

I think what Owen Coyle has achieved makes him the Best Manager to have lead Saints but not the Best Saints Manager!

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Totten was a failure - he had more money to spend than any team outwith the Old Firm as we had McDiarmid built for us. Sturrock for me or Ormond - but he wasn't my era.

Hibs, Hearts, United, Aberdeen were all spending more than us at the time. All the clubs had more cash for transfers before the Bosman ruling kicked in.

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Incidentally, on the other debate, it was clearly Clark who got us into Europe, but unfortunately a lot of people seem unable to admit that purely because he's since shown himself to be a bit of a t***. It's a shame people seem unable to differentiate between the man and his achievements (achievements which the bulk of Saints fans were more than happy to credit him with at the time).

I agree to some extent with this.

Sturrock built a very solid team, but they lacked ideas going forward, were very defensively minded and struggled to break teams down, especially at home. Clark came in and took the same bunch of players, but allowed them to play more attacking football. I remember the first game he took charge of was a 4-0 demolition of Hibs.

I remember sitting in the freezing cold at Rugby Park, as O'Boyle, Lowndes, Kane and Kernaghan played total football (with Saints fans singing 'Championees' and tore Killie apart, only to concede two late soft goals. This kind of summed up Clark, in that his teams would attack, but he payed less attention to the teamwork and defensive aspects. Over time, as players left, the spirit and organisation that Sturrock had worked so hard on was lost, and an average team started playing like one, ultimately resulting in relegation.

Sturrock put in the ground work, built a strong team spirit and defensive base, but Clark took that, gave them confidence to attack, and ultimately, allowed them the freedom to take us to Europe... would that have happened under Sturrock? I doubt it, as his team was too conservative. Would we have been relegated a few years later under Sturrock? Probably not, as we'd have continued on as a conservative, hard to beat, middle of the road side.

I would take Vaasa and Monaco any day over boring 1-0 wins for season after season.

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Willie Ormond the most entertaing free flowing football Saints side I've seen cfompeting with the most entertaing free flowing football Celtic side I've seen. Great wee rn in Europe against three quality clubs and a Cup Final defeat 1-0 against recent European Champions in front of 70,000. Maximum points in a League Cup group including an 8-1 win at Partick, and home and away against Dundee (6 games in August, 6 wins). Managed and nurtured Saints greatest ever player in John Connolly and gave all of us who remember the greatest period on the terracing including no fear of the old firm.

In full agreement with the above - consistently outplayed both the old firm in the days of Jock Stein - only other Scottish manager to do this is in my lifetime is Alex Ferguson. Mind you Bobby Brown desreves a mention for what he did for Scottish football fans after he left Saints! I remember where I was when I heard the 1967 game on the radio and we became World champions by beating Alf Ramsey!

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Willie Ormond...built a saints team that played great football. Solid defence and bags of attacking flair. We could compete with a very good Celtic side and regularly outplayed Rangers at Muirton.

Beat me to it, the man was God to go to old firm grounds and pass them off the park was unbelieable, have we done it since, would like to think we did / could, Willie inspired belief, that is what we have to instill in our present team

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Can only comment from Bobby Brown onwards:

Willie Ormond by a landslide.

then......

Paul Sturrock

Bobby Brown

Alex Totten

Sandy Clark (for THAT season - though much down to Sturrock)

Owen Coyle

Del

Alex Rennie

then (equally iffy).....

Jim Storrie

Alex Stuart

Ian Gibson

Billy Stark

then - the worst of all......

John Connolly (though it pains me to say that as he is otherwise a LEGEND)

McLelland (what a nightmare!)

and - at the fery bottom.......

Jackie Stewart (for destroying a brilliant Ormond team and being in charge during our worst ever top-flight season)

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Out of interest - why Coyle ahead of Del? Surely Del has done a better job?

Fair point - that's a difficult call. In many ways, I'd say there's not much to choose between them - though, as you're hinting, Del took Saints up while Owen didn't.

Dunno really - I think I (generally) enjoyed the type of football we played more under Owen - though Del's team has definitely had it's (many) moments over the last couple of years. Maybe I'm blinded by one of my favourite ever matches as a Saintee - under Owen - the 2-0 win at Ibrox (I enjoyed it even more than the 4-1 humping last season).

TBH, I could honestly happily swap the two of them round

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