Who is Mail Sport’s Premier League Manager of the Season?

The Premier League season is beginning to wind down, meaning it’s time to start pondering who should be crowned 2022-23 Manager of the Year.

There are plenty of candidates for this season’s accolade, with a number of impressive managerial showings coming in the top flight. 

At the top, the likes of Mikel Arteta, Pep Guardiola and Eddie Howe have stormed their way to the forefront of discussions following successful campaigns for their respective sides.

Meanwhile, coaches such as Julen Lopetegui and Unai Emery have earned their claims through their respective transformations of Wolves and Aston Villa.

And so here, Mail Sport’s writers vote for their top three Manager of the Year candidates from this Premier League season.  

Eddie Howe has drawn plaudits after mounting a Champions League charge with Newcastle

Julen Lopetegui (left) and Unai Emery (right) have helped steer Wolves and Aston Villa, respectively, in the right directions

ADAM SHERGOLD

1. Julen Lopetegui 

2. Unai Emery

3. Marco Silva 

Wolves were rock-bottom of the Premier League table and looked a hugely dysfunctional team bound for the Championship when the Spaniard took over in November, having initially turned the Molineux club down. 

From that position, the fact they’re not even in the relegation picture entering the final few games of the campaign speaks to the remarkable turnaround the former Sevilla and Real Madrid boss has enacted. 

The former Spain, Real Madrid and Sevilla boss’ side were rock bottom of the Premier League when he took over

SAMI MOKBEL 

1. Pep Guardiola 

2. Mikel Arteta

3. Roberto De Zerbi

The best team in England. The best team in Europe (even if they don’t win the Champions League). The best coach on the planet. 

AADAM PATEL 

1. Unai Emery

2. Mikel Arteta

3. Pep Guardiola

With pretty much the exact same side that he inherited from Steven Gerrard, Unai Emery has transformed Aston Villa from relegation candidates to European hopefuls.

The Spaniard has managed to get the very best out of each of his players and shown his doubters from his time at Arsenal, exactly what he’s all about.

Emery averages the most points per game after Pep Guardiola and Mikel Arteta and it’s scary to think where Villa would be, if he was in charge from the start of the season.

Emery has put almost the exact same squad he inherited from Steven Gerrard into European contention

TOM COLLOMOSSE 

1. Unai Emery

2. Roberto De Zerbi

3. Julen Lopetegui

The Aston Villa boss just edges out Roberto De Zerbi because Brighton were in far better shape than Villa when they succeeded Steven Gerrard and Graham Potter respectively. 

Emery found a squad that looked to be heading for a relegation battle under Gerrard and transformed them, to the extent the Spaniard would now be disappointed if his team fail to qualify for Europe this term. 

Emery has also done the trick using virtually the same players as Gerrard had, with January signing Alex Moreno the only significant addition. Expect that to change this summer. 

One of Emery’s conditions for joining Villa was that he be given full control of first-team affairs, and he will be heavily involved in transfer business, with Villa expected to be very active indeed in the market. 

With the backing of billionaire owners Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens, there is more excitement at Villa than there has been for many years.

Former Shakhtar Donetsk boss Roberto de Zerbi is only narrowly edged out by Emery, with his Brighton side in better shape when he took the helm

IAN HERBERT

1. Mikel Arteta 

2. Roberto de Zerbi

3. Eddie Howe

Without Arsenal and Mikel Arteta, there would have been no Premier League drama. We would have been watching Manchester City steamroller to another title, these past nine months. 

The wheels falling off should not detract from the way that Arteta has assembled and inspired a young squad with a substantial English component and without an entire nation state to bankroll things. 

No-one saw this squad, with the second youngest average starting XI in the division behind Southampton, challenging in anything like the way they have. Arteta has brought out the best in players. 

Not just Bukayo Saka, a joy to behold all season, but the likes of Granit Xhaka, who has evolved from a lumpen holding midfield into a fine left-sided player. He has had a fraction of the world class talent City can turn to on the bench. 

When we look back on this season in years to come it will be the challenge of Arsenal we will remember.

Arteta and his Arsenal side have helped fill the Premier League with drama this season

LEWIS STEELE

1. Gary O’Neil

2. Mikel Arteta

3. Pep Guardiola

I just can’t look past Gary O’Neil at Bournemouth. The Cherries have the worst squad in the division on paper with a budget dwarfed by many teams in the relegation battle. 

O’Neil came into a team that had just been thrashed 9-0 by Liverpool, had lost their manager Scott Parker due to a disagreement with the board and an instant relegation looked a certainty. 

O’Neil has shown managerial and coaching nous that belies his lack of experience and, for that reason, he’s my manager of the year. Mikel Arteta has done an outstanding job at Arsenal to guide them to runners-up at least, while Pep Guardiola’s achievements of a potential Treble can’t be overlooked.

Honourable mention, though, to Roberto De Zerbi, my favourite team to watch in football.

Bournemouth coach Gary O’Neil has done a tremendous job keeping the Cherries in the league

MATT BARLOW 

1. Gary O’Neil

2. Pep Guardiola 

3. Mikel Arteta

Keeping Bournemouth up despite their limited resources, after a fairly shambolic summer of recruitment, an awful start to the season and the instability of a takeover is a remarkable achievement. 

He has done it with some degree of comfort and playing an attractive style of football. Not bad for a rookie. 

JOE BERNSTEIN 

1. Pep Guardiola

2. Marco Silva

3. Mikel Arteta

Pep is that good, he challenges himself to win trophies in a different way every year. No striker, I’ll win the league with teamwork. 

Best striker who won’t touch the ball other than scoring, I’ll win the league. Big shouts to Gary O’Neil as well but we shouldn’t forget Silva’s Fulham were also relegation favourites – and they are top half

Pep Guardiola has claimed his fifth Premier League title in six seasons with Man City

IAN LADYMAN  

1. Mikel Arteta

2. Pep Guardiola

3. Thomas Frank

Those who say Arsenal have blown the title race should look at the facts. Arsenal have come from nowhere this season to contest the title and are likely to finish only a couple of points shy of the 90 once racked up by Arsene Wenger’s Invincibles. 

It’s been a superb effort. Pep Guardiola comes in second. Anyone who thinks what the Manchester City manager does year on year is easy should ask themselves why nobody else has previously managed it. 

Finally Brentford’s Thomas Frank just pips Brighton’s Roberto de Zerbi to third. De Zerbi’s work in Sussex has been terrific but the groundwork had already been laid for him by Graham Potter. Frank is building his own legacy in west London. 

CHRIS WHEELER 

1. Pep Guardiola

2. Eddie Howe

3. Thomas Frank

It would be ludicrous to overlook Guardiola if he can emulate Sir Alex Ferguson and win the Treble. The Champions League has long been Guardiola’s Holy Grail at Manchester City. 

If he can win the European Cup as well as the Premier League and FA Cup, then the man deserves it. Ferguson received a knighthood. The very least Guardiola should get is manager of the year.

It would be ludicrous to overlook Guardiola for the honour, yet Arteta’s side have come from nowhere to mount a challenge

CRAIG HOPE 

1. Eddie Howe 

2. Pep Guardiola

3. Mikel Arteta

What Howe has (over) achieved at Newcastle is proof that good managers do make a difference. Players previously written off as Championship standard have been improved mentally, tactically, technically and physically. 

Look at Joelinton, Miguel Almiron, Jacob Murphy, Fabian Schar, Sean Longstaff, Joe Willock – they were all bottom of the league when he arrived. Yes, he has spent £250m in 18 months, but he has also spent it well – Howe is across everything when it comes to recruitment. 

Still, though, the bulk of his outfield starters he inherited – and made better. If Newcastle finish the season with Champions League football and having made a cup final, Howe, for me, deserves to be recognised as the best manager, at least within the context of the tools with which he has been working, compared to the likes of Pep Guardiola. 

Newcastle boss Howe has been a main catalyst for the Magpies’ success this season

DOMINIC KING 

1. Roberto De Zerbi

2. Pep Guardiola 

3. Eddie Howe

This, to be clear, is not a deliberate snubbing of Pep Guardiola. The way he has brought Manchester City to peak after this most remarkable season, with challenges that have never before been faced, has been a masterclass and he will surely win the LMA award.

But, as an alternative, De Zerbi has been outstanding in his debut campaign. In his first game against Liverpool, he set Brighton up to be adventurous and brave and got a 3-3 draw that should, really, have been a win.

What have you seen from De Zerbi in the time since is a man who has made players improve in front of your eyes. Brighton were already a good team but they have become superb and for him to be on the cusp of doing something that has never been done in their history – potentially leading them into Europe – must have some form of recognition. A high-demanding individual whose team plays attractive football. This urbane Italian deserves our utmost respect.

If Manchester City win the treble then it’s Pep Guardiola. But based off what we know at this moment in time I cannot look past Gary O’Neil who, largely under the radar, has performed a miracle to keep Bournemouth in the top flight. Few would have had the Cherries down as anything other than relegation certainties and while they will not win titles or trophies, keeping them in the Premier League will be worth its weight in gold to the club’s new owners.

Italian coach De Zerbi has taken the Premier League by storm since his appointment

DANIEL MATTHEWS

1. Roberto De Zerbi

2. Gary O’Neil 

3. Mikel Arteta 

When the Italian arrived in September, he faced a tough enough task just to emulate the great work of Graham Potter. 

But over the course of this first season, the Italian has taken Brighton to new heights while introducing a unique, high-tariff style of play to the Premier League. A triumph of good coaching.

OLIVER HOLT 

1. Pep Guardiola

2. Roberto De Zerbi

3. Mikel Arteta

I’ve loved watching Brighton even more since De Zerbi took over this season. I thought the performance against Arsenal at the weekend was brave, brilliant and inventive and redolent of all the good things that make him such a highly-rated manager. 

But it’s hard to look beyond Guardiola for manager of the season. Manchester City are on course for only the second Treble in English football history and the closer City have got to the prizes they are chasing, the better they have played. 

They have done it with style and they have showed character when they have faced adversity and Guardiola’s tactic of playing John Stones as an inverted full-back has been a tactical master-stroke. More than ever, it feels a privilege to be watching the work of the greatest coach of this generation.

MAIL SPORT’S MANAGER OF THE YEAR: Pep Guardiola