If Premier League managers were to be cast in The Simpsons based on their personality, which characters would they be?
Jose Mourinho - Sideshow Bob
Both claim to be the evil one, but are ultimately a sideshow.
Pep Guardiola - Frank Grimes
Meticulous, obsessive men who are affronted by the easy success of others while also not being able to fathom it. It's easy to picture Pep calling round to Sam Allardyce's house, wailing over his unevenly sharpened pencils and his daily gravy.
Jurgen Klopp - Hank Scorpio
The beard, the maniacal laugh, the wide grin and the devotion among his employees. Klopp or Scorpio? Can also imagine Klopp being the first Premier League manager to wear jeans with a sports coat.
Maurizio Sarri - Lionel Hutz' smoking monkey
Look, we thought this was slightly less lazy than ascribing him to one of the mafia characters......'Look, he's taken another puff!'
Unai Emery - Gabbo
The successor to a long-serving incumbent who hits on early success thanks to his hard-nosed regime. "Well, kids, this is where you would watch Itchy and Scratchy, except they're on The Gabbo Show now. So, here's Eastern Europe's favorite cat and mouse team, Worker and Parasite!"
Marc Silva - The Giant-Handed Man
"I am tired of these jokes about my jumping from one club to another. The first such incident occurred in 2014, when...
Chris Hughton - Marge
Both do most of the effective work but will forever be underappreciated.
Javi Gracia - Blue Haired Lawyer
Another going about his work for a series of millionaires in a quiet, effective way. Fans often look at both and think, 'Damn, I'm sure I knew his name...'
Nuno Espirito Santo - Sideshow Mel
An extension of the Mou/Bob paradigm above - somewhat of a protege of Mourinho's, having worked under him at Porto.
Rafa Benitez - Curtis E. Bear The Courtesy Bear
Both have to put up with a lot more abuse and hardship than either deserve. Also: cuddly.
Roy Hodgson - Lee Carvallo
Men whose few instructions are extremely basic.
Neil Warnock - Jasper
Both are curmudgeons who are nonetheless happy to still be around.
David Wagner - Millhouse
Seems relatively happy despite being lumped with an unenviable and doomed fate.
Claudio Ranieri - Chief Wiggum
You get the sense neither assert absolute control over their subjects, yet both look very happy to be where they are.
Mauricio Pochettino - Johnny Tightlips
This is based on Pochettino's refusal to give his Southampton press conferences in English, despite being fluent at the language. Even though he now gives his Spurs interviews in his adopted tongue, he rarely gives much away.
Mark Hughes - Ranier Wolfcastle
The strong, silent types. You wouldn't mess with either. We are putting in Hughes because we don't know enough about his Southampton successor.
Claude Puel - Dolph Starbeam
Puel was a bit of a rebel in his younger managerial days: as manager of Lille, he threatened to take his team off the pitch in protest at a quickly-taken Ryan Giggs free-kick in the Champions League that led to a goal. Alex Ferguson used typical 'teenager acting out' condescension afterwards: "He's a young guy so he will learn to hold it down soon. Hopefully he doesn't learn the hard way".
Sean Dyche - Superintendent Chalmers
Both manage to give a perception of being in total and cool command of an institution that is bound to fail anyway.
Eddie Howe - Martin Prince
Blonde-haired Howe strikes one as being the top of every class, like Martin.
Manuel Pelligrini - Ned Flanders
Both are entirely reasonable and polite men, yet others would prefer to have someone else nearby. Pep Guardiola for instance.
Elsewhere, here are a few former managers to further populate the cast.
Arsene Wenger - Kirk Van Houten
Both have a very defined sense of dignity, yet often see that dignity undermined by the outrageous actions of others.
Antonio Conte - Louie
Ah come on, we were all thinking it.
Slaven Bilic - Otto Mann
Both are huge fans of rock music: Bilic was once in a rock group in Croatia called Rawbau.
Alan Pardew - Duffman
Pardew already has the wide, gleaming grin sorted and is the manager on this list most likely to refer to himself in the third person.
Tony Pulis: Moe Sizlack
Both are hard-nosed and irascible rulers of their place of work.
David Moyes - Hans Moleman
Sadly, both seem to exist to be mocked. Although Moyes has yet to experience the worst indignity: getting hit by a football in the groin.
Alex Ferguson - Mr. Burns
The cold and wealthy Sauron's eye looking over the rest of the cast.
Steve McLaren - Gil Gunderson
Both portray a bereft and desperately unfortunate oft-sacked individual. One of these men was subject of a headline entitled "Wally In A Brolly", preventing subsequent colleagues from ever using an umbrella to shield themselves from torrential rain on the touchline.
Sam Allardyce - Nelson Muntz
Nobody has ever quite captured the tone of Nelson's dismissal laugh as well as Allardyce:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYgkR-yXDjo
Remi Garde - Disco Stu
Suave and stylish, yet irrelevant.
Avram Grant - Poochie
Introduced to little acclaim, failed to connect with the audience, removed by popular demand and was then subject to some retrospective sympathy by the people who forced him out.
André Villas-Boas - Lyle Lanley of Monorail fame
Arrived on the scene to implement some radical ideas, only to swiftly disappear when those plans were revealed to be a sham.
Tim Sherwood - Lenny Leonard
This just works.
Brendan Rodgers - Troy McClure
Both have little trouble talking about themselves, or indeed their careers.
Harry Redknapp - Lionel Hutz
A fackin' wheeler-dealer? No, money down!
Felix Magath - Dr Nick Riviera
Magath once treated muscle injuries by rubbing them with a block of cheese, which sounds like something from the Dr. Nick school of medicine.
Alan Curbishley: Radioactive Man
Curbishley must be radioactive. Why won't anybody give him a job?
