Longest serving Premier League manager: who holds the record in 2026?

By Martin Graham · 7 min read

A Premier League manager rarely gets time. One bad run is enough for a board to change coach, and a few seasons at the same club already count as a long stay. Tenure is also easy to measure, which makes it a fair way to compare managers across more than 30 years of the competition.

Current Premier League managers and how long each has been in charge

Mikel Arteta is the longest-serving manager in the Premier League, since Pep Guardiola left Manchester City after ten years at the end of 2025-26. Appointed at Arsenal on 22 December 2019, Arteta has now spent 6 years and 10 months in the job, more than anyone in the top four divisions of English football. Unai Emery comes second at Aston Villa, appointed on 1 November 2022, almost three years after Arteta. Arsenal are the reigning champions, and Arteta signed a contract in October that runs until the end of 2029-30.

Figures in the table are as of 30 October 2026. An interim spell counts from the day of appointment, so Michael Carrick’s tenure at Manchester United starts on 13 January 2026, not on the day he was made permanent.

Among the 20 current managers, only three have passed the three-year mark: Arteta, Emery and Daniel Farke at Leeds. Régis Le Bris at Sunderland and Fabian Hürzeler at Brighton are level at more than two years, appointed one day apart in July 2024. Behind them, tenures shrink fast. Nine of the 20 managers arrived in June 2026 or later, the most new managers on an opening weekend in the Premier League era.

Premier League managers sacked since the start of 2025-26

Stability is the exception, and the last two seasons show how quickly the churn runs.

• The league recorded 11 managerial changes in 2025-26, and Nottingham Forest alone dismissed three permanent managers: Nuno Espírito Santo, Postecoglou and Dyche.
• Arne Slot won the 2024-25 title in his first season at Liverpool and was dismissed after his second.
• Only six of the 20 current managers were already in their jobs on 1 January 2025.
• By 30 October 2026, no manager had been sacked this season. A year earlier, two had already gone.

Bookmakers open a market on the first manager to be sacked every season, and the favourite changes after every bad result. “Odds determine what a winning bet pays, and the best bookmakers are the ones that keep their margins low,” explains Paul Lenglet, co-founder of the CritiqueJeu comparison site.

Longest managerial reigns in Premier League history

Arsène Wenger holds the record for the longest unbroken reign at one Premier League club: 22 seasons at Arsenal, from October 1996 to May 2018. Sir Alex Ferguson ranks second with 21 seasons of Premier League football at Manchester United, and he had already managed the club for more than five years before the competition began.

Joe Kinnear at Wimbledon, Harry Redknapp at West Ham, Rafael Benítez at Liverpool, Alan Curbishley at Charlton, Sam Allardyce at Bolton and Gérard Houllier at Liverpool follow with spells of five and a half to seven and a half years.

The order of the first two names changes with the counting method, and three methods circulate.

How a tenure is counted

Every count below runs from the day the manager took charge (or from 1 July 1992 under the second method) to the manager’s last match. The first method counts every day at the club. Ferguson then reaches 9,691 days, because his arrival in 1986 predates the league, and he finishes well ahead of Wenger’s 7,894 days. The second keeps only unbroken Premier League days and sets 1 July 1992 as day one for anyone already in post. Ferguson falls to 7,627 days and Wenger leads, which is the ranking used in the table above. A relegation resets the clock under this method, so Sean Dyche’s long spell at Burnley, interrupted by one season in the Championship, does not qualify.

The third method counts matches. Wenger managed 828 Premier League games and Ferguson 810. Beyond the Premier League, the record for English league football is far older: Fred Everiss ran West Bromwich Albion as secretary-manager for more than 45 years, from 1902 to 1948.

When Arteta could pass each record

A contract that runs to 2030 makes the arithmetic simple. On the unbroken-days ranking, Arteta is at 2,504 days and has already passed Redknapp’s 2,464 days at West Ham. Kinnear’s 2,698 days at Wimbledon fall around May 2027, Klopp’s 3,146 days at Liverpool around August 2028 and Guardiola’s 3,614 days at Manchester City around November 2029. Moyes’s 4,084 days at Everton would arrive around February 2031, about eight months after the current contract expires. Wenger’s total needs a stay until 2041. All these dates assume Arteta stays at Arsenal without a break.

Shortest managerial reigns in Premier League history

Sam Allardyce holds the record for the shortest reign: 30 days at Leeds United in 2023. He was hired for the last four games of the season, collected one point, could not prevent relegation and left when his short-term contract ended on 2 June. Among managers who lost their job during a season, Ange Postecoglou’s 39 days at Nottingham Forest in 2025 are the briefest. Frank de Boer lasted four league games at Crystal Palace in 2017, the fewest for a permanent manager, and Allardyce also managed four.

Igor Tudor, an interim appointment after the dismissal of Thomas Frank, left after a 3-0 home defeat to Nottingham Forest, one of the shortest entries in Tottenham’s managerial history. Spurs collected a single point under him. Les Reed’s 40 days at Charlton are sometimes given as 41, when both the first and last days are counted.

Oldest manager in Premier League history

Roy Hodgson is the oldest manager to take charge of a Premier League match. He was 76 years and 187 days old when Crystal Palace lost 3-1 at home to Chelsea on 12 February 2024, his 200th and last game with the club.

• Bobby Robson was 71 years and 192 days old for Newcastle’s 0-0 draw at Aston Villa on 28 August 2004, his last game as a manager.
• Sir Alex Ferguson managed his final match at 71 years and 139 days, the 5-5 draw at West Bromwich Albion on 19 May 2013. He is the oldest manager to have won the title.
• Neil Warnock, 70 years and 162 days, took charge of Cardiff City’s 2-0 win at Manchester United on 12 May 2019.
• Claudio Ranieri was 70 years and 93 days old when Watford hosted Norwich City on 21 January 2022.

Youngest manager in Premier League history

Ryan Mason is the youngest manager to take charge of a Premier League match. He was 29 years and 312 days old when he led Tottenham against Southampton on 21 April 2021, as caretaker after José Mourinho was sacked. Among permanent appointments, the record belongs to Fabian Hürzeler, who was 31 years and 173 days old when Brighton opened the 2024-25 season at Everton.

Mason is the only manager in Premier League history to take charge of a game before his 30th birthday. Hürzeler was also the first Premier League manager born after the competition was founded.

Best Premier League managers of all time by league titles

Sir Alex Ferguson’s 13 titles are more than twice the total of any other manager, among the thirteen who have won the Premier League since 1992.

Tenure and titles overlap only in part. Ferguson won his 13 in 21 Premier League seasons and Guardiola six in ten. Wenger took three in 22 seasons, and Moyes spent 11 seasons at Everton without winning one. Klopp won one title in nine seasons at Liverpool, and Arteta has one in just under seven years.

About the author: Martin Graham

Martin Graham is a football journalist and writer with extensive experience covering the world's most popular sport. He specialises in football news, match analysis, player features and historical football content, with a particular interest in international tournaments and the game's biggest stories. His writing combines detailed research with a clear, engaging style, making complex football topics accessible to a wide…

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