In answer to the question of who was the worst Premier League manager, the reflex answer is to blurt out "Mike Walker" in a Tourettic yelp.

The man was an utter disgrace, and it was during the delusional stage in my adolescent life when I took on a naive view of football, thinking that my team would become the English Real Madrid (for Spurs fans this isn't so much of a "stage" and more of a perennial outlook), that Walker was in charge.

And it just so happened that my knee-jerk instinct served me well; Walker is the worst manager to take the helm at Everton in modern times. Compared to his Everton peers Walker limps in to last place with a pitiful win rate of just 32 per cent.

'Looking at the statistics makes you contemplate whether Walker was a saboteur'


Mike Walker – his very name is always followed by a groan. Walker lasted just 10 months in the Everton job, the shortest tenure of any Everton manager and yet those months were excruciating. The unbridled tosh from the Silver Fox, in reality the John Major of football, would make even the most hardened fan weep.

After coaxing him from his East Anglian utopia at Norwich – where he had taken the Canaries to third in the Premier League, qualifying for the Uefa Cup in his first season – we even had to suffer the ignominy of having to pay compensation for him to his former club.

Looking back we should have left him well alone. What is most frustrating about Walker's reign at Everton is that he did so well at Norwich, his form as a coach took such a nosedive at Everton that looking at the statistics makes you contemplate whether Walker was a saboteur.

Admittedly Walker oversaw our miracle 3-2 comeback victory over Wimbledon, somehow pulling our heads from the gnashing jaws of relegation – but I think the players, especially Anders Limpar, Barry Horne, and Graham Stuart had more to do with that than Walker.

After that wake-up call of a game we all thought that success would follow, but tragically we couldn’t have been more wrong. What followed was one of the most obscenely toe-curling starts to the season from the Toffees, with Walker going 12 whole games without a win. Eventually a win came against West Ham, but the damage had already been done. In November 1994, Walker was given the boot by Peter Johnson.

Analysing Walker’s signings reveals one good buy, the young Joe Parkinson for a mere £250,000, but the Silver Fox followed that up with a cavalcade of atrocious transfer decisions.

When he took over in January one of his first signings was the stupendously bad Brett Angell, the clodhopper whose first touch was so bad it resembled a tackle. He followed that genius signing in the summer by splurging on Vinny Samways and Daniel Amokachi. Nice. Add to this the fact that he wanted to buy the extortionate and ageing Brazilian Muller, embarrassingly dragging him past a pack of press before failing to get him.

The worst manager? You bet your life.