I’ve enjoyed reading this thread, we really have been blessed to have had so many outstanding managers.
When it comes to ranking them, I guess a lot depends on what you value most. I think you can, in a very quick and dirty way, loosely categorise our top managers into two camps:
1) Those that turned the club around (as well as winning a fair bit of silverware)
Shankly – joined a team in the second tier and established them as the best team in the country and a decent European proposition. Established is the key word here. Other clubs have made the leap from second tier to champions in a short amount of time, establishing them as the top team is what separates Shanks.
Houllier – dragged our club kicking and screaming into the modern era, clearing out the bad attitude and losing mentality that had taken hold and ushering in a new era of success.
Klopp – turned a club of doubters into a club of believers. Rid us of the biggest monkey that any top club has ever had on their back by winning the first league title in 30 years – TICK. Took a low spending (relative to our rivals) club from 6th place in England to the best team in England, Europe and the world – TICK. Took us from a disastrous 2014/15 to a team playing arguably the highest level of football (97pts, 99pts, CL winners, CL runners up in a two year period) that any club has ever played in English football – TICK.
2) Those that built on their predecessors foundations to take the club to new heights
Paisley – Took the best team in England and made them the undisputed best team in Europe for almost a decade. Thanks to him, we’re one of only 5 clubs to have an entire era as the dominant club side in Europe. Madrid, Ajax, Bayern, Us and Barca. And his trophy haul is insane. For my money, the most impressive trophy haul of any manager in English football history.
Fagan – Picked up the baton from Paisley and, although his tenure was brief, gave us our most impressive season in terms of trophies won, 1983/84.
Dalglish – Carried on the trophy hoarding after Fagan and gave us the team that some say was our best ever, 1987/88. Also gave us our first (and, so far, only) League & FA Cup double, back in the days when that really was a big deal, before the FA Cup became a reserve team tournament.
Benitez – Took the foundation that Houllier built and ran with it. Boy did he run with it. Made us European champions in our first season, FA Cup winners in the second and back in the CL final the year after. Officially the best team in Europe for a period (as per UEFA’s famous coefficient). All this against the backdrop of two parasites draining our club dry. To achieve what he did in those circumstances is incredible.
I wouldn’t put the other 4 into either of the above categories.
So, given all that, I’d rank them like this:
Tier 1) Shankly and Paisley. I just can’t split them. One built the club, the other is the most successful.
Tier 2) Klopp. Pretty sure he’ll be Tier 1 in a couple of years.
Tier 3) Rafa and Dalglish.
Tier 4) Houllier and Fagan.
Tier 5) Rodgers. Created one of our most exhilarating teams ever and gave us one of the most fun seasons any of us has experienced. Enjoying the moment counts for a lot in my mind and few, if any, seasons have ever topped 13/14 for that. Like Rafa and Klopp, he was unlucky to have managed in an era in which we’re up against so many teams with an unfair financial advantage over us, so I’m not counting having won less pots than Souness and Evans against him.
Tier 6) Souness and Evans. Thanks for the FA Cup and League Cup.
Tier 7) Hodgson. Wrong man in the wrong job at the wrong time. Just wrong.