Lampard, Mou, Pep, Ole... Ranking 10 EPL managers on success of playing careers

What do Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and José Mourinho have in common, despite both managing Manchester United to indifferent levels of success? Well, they are both living proof that a formidable playing career doesn't guarantee - nor is it a necessary predecessor to - success in management.

They've each proved that point in their own very different way, and to varying degrees, so have the majority of the current Premier League managers. 

Of course, there are one or two show-offs who have bucked the trend and had both. Here are the 10 current managers ranked on how their playing careers panned out. 

10. Brendan Rodgers

Position: Defender

Currently flying high in the Champions League places with Leicester, having won a multitude of honours with Celtic and taken Liverpool to within a whisker of the Premier League title, it's unlikely Rodgers longs for the playing career he never had.

The Northern Irishman showed some promise at Ballymena United and Reading, before a genetic knee issue ended his professional career at 20. Non-league purgatory beckoned for a few years before he hung up his boots and moved into coaching.

9. Jose Mourinho

Position: Midfielder

The Special One's super-villain origin story starts in the Portuguese top flight back in 1980, when in a small handful of senior appearances, it quickly became apparent while playing for Rio Ave that he just wasn't good enough. 

He quickly plummeted down the leagues and sacked it off in 1987, aged just 24, to focus on coaching instead. Not the worst choice, it has to be said, given the career in the game that followed. 

8. David Moyes

Position: Defender

In many ways, Moyesy's days as a player foreshadowed his managerial career - fitting, then, that he's firmly embedded in the mid-table here. Peaking nice and early with a league title with Celtic, Moyes - a steady central defender - quickly realised he wasn't perhaps as good as once thought, and found his level in the English lower leagues.

He returned to Scotland for a decent spell with Dunfermline in the second tier before settling at Preston North End, where he would make over 150 appearances and eventually move into coaching.

7. Jurgen Klopp

Position: Defender/Striker

"I had fourth-division talent and a first-division head. That resulted in the second division."

It's unclear whether Klopp's famous summary of his playing ability was referring to his intelligence or his renowned aerial prowess, but it works either way. Now the best manager in the world, as a player, he wasn't quite world class, but had little to complain about. 

Spending almost his entire career with Mainz in Bundesliga 2, and featuring everywhere from centre forward to centre half, Klopp retired as their record appearance-maker and all-time top scorer with 52 goals. 

He then went on to manage them to promotion, further cementing his legendary status at the club.

6. Mikel Arteta

Position: Midfielder

Now we're getting into the big leagues. Having retired as recently as 2016, current Arsenal boss Arteta is a name well-known to virtually everyone with even a passing interest in English football. 

Having impressed in Barcelona's youth ranks, he was never quite able to break into the first-team, leading to a move to Rangers that would put him on the radar of Premier League scouts. He left Glasgow for a brief return to Spain before being brought to Merseyside with Everton, where his classy playmaking abilities would rapidly endear him to English fans up and down the country. 

He would go on to make 359 appearances for the Toffees and before joining Arsenal, scoring 51 goals and cementing his reputation as one of the best midfielders around - even if he never managed a senior cap for Spain. 

5. Steve Bruce

Position: Defender

Winning three Premier League titles with Manchester United as a fixture of the great Alex Ferguson teams of the 1990s, Steve Bruce's playing career speaks for itself. 

He was named in the team of the decade for the 90s and is fondly remembered as one of the absolute best central defenders of the early days of the Premier League. He once scored a fairly astonishing 19 goals (all comps) in a season from the back!

His managerial (nor literary) career hasn't quite lived up to that, but the job he is currently doing with Newcastle shows he perhaps doesn't get the credit he deserves.

4. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer

Position: Striker

There's a reason Manchester United are currently showing a level of patience towards Solskjaer that no manager since Ferguson has been granted; his previous goalscoring antics have put plenty of credit in the Norwegian's bank.

The Baby-Faced Assassin's 126 goals across 366 appearances helped yield six Premier League titles in his 11 seasons in England, as well as two FA Cups and a Champions League ('...and Solskjaer has won it!') for good measure. 

3. Carlo Ancelotti

Position: Midfielder

A career fraught with injury perhaps prevented Ancelotti's career from hitting the heights it could have, but regardless, the time he spent with Roma and Milan remains the envy of many an aspiring Italian midfielder.

A true Rolls Royce in the middle of the park, Ancelotti helped Roma to one of the most successful periods in their history after joining from Parma, winning four Coppe Italia and the 1983 Serie A title - only the second in the club's history. He then went on to become a key part of one of the best-ever club sides, joining Paolo Maldini, Ruud Gullit and Marco van Basten at Milan.

There, he won two further Scudetti and back-to-back European Cups in 1989 and 1990. He managed a career total of just 338 appearances due to his injury record but left behind a legacy that would be dwarfed only by one of the most successful managerial careers in history. 

2. Pep Guardiola

Position: Midfielder

Another whose days as a manager have left an incredible playing career in the dust, Guardiola's lack of pace and power might have been a problem for other players of his generation, but his intelligence, technical ability and aptitude at reading the game more than compensated and saw him become one of the best central midfield players of his generation.

Deployed largely as a holding midfield player, Guardiola won everything on the pitch with Barcelona, as a key disciple in Johan Cruyff's 'Dream Team', before moving on to win everything again off it. He claimed a stunning six La Liga titles - including four in a row between 1990 and 1994.

Injury ravaged a later spell in Italy with Roma and Brescia and he retired after spells in Qatar and Mexico failed to take off - but that's barely a footnote in the grand scheme of things.

1. Frank Lampard

Position: Midfielder

Where do you even start? One of the finest attacking midfielders of a generation which birthed the modern concept of an attacking midfielder, Lampard won literally every trophy he ever contested in his 13 years with Chelsea.

Three Premier League titles, four FA Cups, two League Cups, two Community Shields, a Champions League and a Europa League. He was the Ballon d'Or runner-up in 2005 and has a list of individual honours almost as long as his goalscoring record.

And that, by the way, is one almost any striker would envy, netting 211 in 648 Chelsea appearances. It remains highly unlikely we'll ever see a midfielder hit the goalscoring heights he did in the Premier League; a genuinely, unbelievably, astonishingly good player who is now proving he has it as a coach.