Zola is England's 10th best manager, says LMA

An LMA initiative has concluded that in the last quarter of the season, Gianfranco Zola was England's 10th-best manager.

The 46 year-old came behind the likes of Sir Alex Ferguson, Roberto Mancini and Brendan Rodgers, but pipped Arsene Wenger, Andre Villas-Boas and Rafa Benitez to a top-10 spot.

Devised by the League Managers' Association, the Castrol LMA Performance Table allows managers from the Premier League and Football League to be compared against one another with all competitions measured.

Watford Head Coach Zola not only makes the top 10 for the quarter just ended, but is 15th on the seasonal table having secured a fifth-placed finish in the second quarter.

The table takes into account wins, draws, goals scored, clean sheets kept, the margin of victory, unbeaten runs and the relative size of teams faced in cup competitions.

Zola's three away wins over the last seven games are worth 12 points each, with his solitary home win worth 10 points.

The Hornet's scored 15 goals in that period under Zola's stewardship, keeping two points worth of clean sheets. An overall win margin worth 10 points was established giving Zola 73 points to be divided by the number of games played (seven).

That gives Zola a score of 10.4 x 100 = a total 'Top Twenty' score of 104 points, some 49 points behind top of the league Nigel Pearson of Leicester City.

To see the full table CLICK HERE

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