There is no escaping the cult of the manager in English football. From Busby to Ferguson, from Chapman to Wenger, from Shankly to Klopp, from Revie to Clough, from Mourinho to Guardiola, it sometimes feels like one of the last bastions of the 19th-century ‘great man theory’ — as if, to bastardise the words of Thomas Carlyle, the history of English football is but the biography of great men.
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Some of the greatest are commemorated with statues outside their clubs’ stadiums: Herbert Chapman and Arsene Wenger at Arsenal, Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley at Liverpool, Sir Matt Busby and Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, Sir Alf Ramsey and Sir Bobby Robson at Ipswich Town, Don Revie at Leeds United, Stan Cullis at Wolverhampton Wanderers.