In football these days it's not unusual for someone who had no success on the pitch to be a genius in the dugout. Many of the most successful managers in the modern game barely know how to kick a ball. Sir Alex Ferguson may have had a modestly successful career as a striker but the likes of Jose Mourinho, Arsene Wenger, Louis van Gaal and Roy Hodgson achieved nothing in the game before turning to management. Why is that so many world class managers never played a high level, while so many world class players can't seem to manage their way out of a paper bag? We may never know the reason, but maybe we can study the most egregious examples of managerial laughing stocks to find out why these legendary players failed so badly at management.
10. Bryan Robson
Bryan Robson was one of the greatest midfielders England has ever produced. With his tenacity, boundless energy and eye for goal, he won 90 England caps and turned out for West Bromwich Albion and, most famously, Manchester United. He was captain of The Red Devils during three F.A. Cup victories, and he also lifted a Cup Winners' Cup during his 13-year stay at Old Trafford. He left in 1994 to join Middlesborough as a player-manager and in his first season in the hotseat led them to promotion from what was then Division One. For a while he was spoken of in hushed tones as a potential successor to Fergie, maybe even a future England boss. And then it all started to go wrong. Robson spent money in Teeside and brought in exotic foreign names like Emerson, Branco, Juninho and Fabrizio Ravenelli. Despite this he never led them any higher than 9th in the top division, and oversaw relegation in the 1996/97 season when they also reached both domestic cup finals, losing both. To his credit, he led Boro back to the top table again at the first time of asking the following season. In 2001, with another relegation battle looming, Robson was eased out of the dugout and replaced by then-Manchester United assistant Steve McClaren. Robson was out of work until 2003 when he took over Bradford City, struggling in Division One. He was unable to make any real impact and took the club down. He returned to the Premier League - and one of his former clubs - when he took West Brom in 2004. He helped keep the struggling Baggies up, even if the club's "great escape" owed more the limitations of their relegation rivals than anything else. In the following season, Robson reverted to type and led them to relegation. It was remarkably the fourth relegation on his managerial CV. He then took over at Sheffield United in May 2007 but left early in 2008 with the club fighting against relegation. These days Robson has a nebulous ambassadorial role at Manchester United, and was last seen in the dugout back in 2011, when he was managing Thailand. It's probably better for everyone concerned if he stays out of the management game.