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It's nearly December and basically, a third of the European football season has passed. Many teams are struggling and quite a few have already changed their manager. There have been 5 sackings In the English Premier League alone.
West Bromwich Albion and Everton are currently without a permanent manager and the delay regarding the appointment of the next boss might be down to the fact there aren't many to choose from.
Everton, especially, seem to be struggling to pick out the next man to lead the team. It's been over a month since the sacking of Ronald Koeman.
With a platitude of managers being shown the door in recent times, here's a look at the 10 best managers in world football, who happen to be unemployed at the moment:
#10 Paulo Bento
Paulo Bento has a mixed reputation as he's been forced to leave a couple of jobs after a string of bad results, but he would be an interesting choice for any midlevel club.
The 48-year-old is currently without a job, after getting sacked by Olympiacos last March. Mind you, it happened in bizarre circumstances, as the team was holding the top spot in Greece with a nearly 10-point edge over the rest of the back and had qualified for the Round of 16 in the UEFA Europa League.
Bento is probably best known for his work at Sporting Lisbon. He brought the team two Portuguese Cups and two Super Cups, also leading them to the League Cup final a couple of times. In terms of trophies won, the former defensive midfielder is the second most successful manager in club history.
After his good job at Sporting, Bento was appointed Portugal manager after Carlos Queiroz was sacked following a poor start to the EURO 2012 qualifiers. The team won eight of the first 10 games played under Bento, including a 4-0 hammering of the then world champions, Spain.
He got the nation to the Euros via playoffs, and the team had a very successful run there, only stopped by Spain in the semi-finals in a penalty shootout.
Bento's reign with Portugal ended after a poor start to the 2016 EURO qualifiers. After that, he had a brief spell with Cruzeiro in Brazil before taking over at Olympiacos.
Bento has won 59.33% of matches as manager. Over 327 matches, his team has scored 154 more goals than the opponents. He looks like a solid appointment, although there could be some difficulties coming up after the honeymoon period is over.
#9 Martin Jol
Martin Jol has been unemployed since August 2016, after leaving Egyptian club Al-Ahly following their 38th league title. Notably, they had missed out on it the previous year.
As a manager, Jol has also won the Dutch Cup twice. He has a total of 688 games to his name as manager, and he's worked in many different countries. His adaptability looks unquestionable and this means that he could do a good job in any league.
Jol is probably best known for his time in England with Tottenham Hotspur and Fulham, but his most successful spells have been with Ajax, in his home country, and with Hamburg in Germany.
Usually a powerhouse in the Netherlands, Ajax was without a single trophy for a number of years before Jol brought them cup success in 2010. To this day, it's the last local cup win for the famous Amsterdam side.
Under him, Ajax also had a wonderful run in the league, but bizarrely missed out on the title, which went to FC Twente. That with a 1-point edge over Ajax, who won all of their last 14 matches.
Jol's team had the best defensive and offensive record in the league. They scored a whopping 106 goals in 34 matches. Their goal difference +86 has two times better than PSV's, who had the second-best goal difference.
Jol also lead Ajax back to the UEFA Champions League group stages for the first time since 2005/06.
His spell in charge of the club didn't last long, though. He resigned in December 2010, a few months after Fulham unsuccessfully tried to hire him as their new manager. To nobody's surprise, he finally made his move to Craven Cottage for the 2011/12 season.
Jol led Fulham to a 9th and 12th place finishes in the Premier League before leaving. His time at the club included wins over the likes of Arsenal and Liverpool, and also draws against Manchester City and Chelsea.
On the way to their first ever Premier League title win, City conceded over one goal in a game, just five times. One of these occasions was at the Craven Cottage in a 2-2 draw.
The Dutchman's spell in the Premier League also includes two 5th-place finishes with Tottenham during his only two full seasons in charge of the Spurs. With his know-how of the league, he looks like a very good candidate for Premier League sides on the prowl for a new manager.
#8 Vitor Pereira
These days, every young(ish) manager coming out from Portugal seems the be labeled as the new Jose Mourinho, but with Vitor Pereira, these comparisons actually seemed to be true.
Pereira's Porto won nearly 70% of matches on the way to consecutive league titles in 2012 and 2013. The former midfielder quickly built himself a reputation that got him linked to various clubs in bigger European leagues. For example, before the appointment of Roberto Martinez in 2013, he was one time considered as the favourite to take charge of Everton.
Instead of a move to the Premier League, Pereira ended up taking a bigger paycheck and moved to Al-Ahli in Saudi Arabia. It was a move that derailed his promising managerial career a bit, as since then, not much has been heard of him.
Following his time in Saudi Arabia, Pereira lead Olympiacos to a league and cup double in 2015. A brief spell at Fenerbahce followed. He won 38 and lost nine of 62 matches before his contract was unexpectedly terminated at the start of 2016/17 season. The club found that he had violated it after a trip back home without permission.
Pereira ended up taking charge of Munich 1860 during the latter half of last season. He couldn't save the club from relegation in the 2. Bundesliga and left shortly after that.
The short spells at many different clubs don't look good on Pereira's CV, and that could be the reason why he doesn't get much attention now, but the next club willing to take the risk of hiring him could end up with a jackpot.
Will Everton go after him again? They should consider it.
#7 Vincenzo Montella
Vincenzo Montella has just been sacked by AC Milan. Things really do change quickly in football.
With the Italian Super Cup win last December, Montella brought the club its first trophy since 2011. Last season, he led Milan back into the TOP 6 in the league for the first time in four years and brought back European football for the sleeping giant.
This season also started well, with four wins in first five league fixtures, but things soon went south and the former striker now finds himself unemployed after some impatience shown by the club.
But Milan's loss should be another clubs gain. 43-year-old Montella is still a young manager, but he already has some great experience. He worked at four different clubs before getting hired by Milan.
Before Montella's arrival in the summer of 2012, Fiorentina was a bottom half side in Serie A. He brought Viola three consecutive 4th-place finishes, and almost led the side to the Champions League in his debut season, missing out on a TOP 3 finish by only a couple of points.
Getting fired is never nice, but Montella should find himself back in the saddle soon enough and the Super Cup success in 2016 surely won't be his only major win as manager. Fiorentina is probably already regretting his sacking in the summer of 2015, as they just haven't been the same side ever since.
#6 Slaven Bilic
Like Montella, Bilic is another recently sacked manager. West Ham got rid of him only a couple of seasons after a superb 7th-place finish. The Hammers have never finished higher in the Premier League.
in 2015/16, Bilic became only the 4th manager to record away wins over Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester City in the same season. His team was very exciting to watch as they almost finished as the league's highest scorers after finding the net 65 times.
During his six years in charge, Croatia was also a wonderful team to watch and with a bit of more talent, could've easily achieved some success at one of the major tournaments. For example, only a penalty shootout loss to Turkey knocked them out of the EURO 2008 semis.
Bilic won nearly 65% of matches in 2006-2012 with Croatia. He then had a disappointing spell at Lokomotiv Moscow, but bounced back at Besiktas with three consecutive 3rd-place finishes.
The 49-year-old has picked up some great experience from many different leagues and will be an asset for any side ready to give him a chance.
He hasn't yet won anything as a manager, so the desire and will to win should still be there. And what's maybe even more important, is that he'll be eager to prove his doubters wrong after his time at West Ham was brought to a cruel end.
#5 Christoph Daum
Younger football fans might not know this, but Christoph Daum was once rated very highly as a manager. The 64-year-old won the Bundesliga with Stuttgart in 1992 and was a leading candidate to take over Germany after a poor EURO 2000.
Daum had finished second in the Bundesliga three times in four years, working at Leverkusen in 1996-2000. He was set to achieve big things as a manager, but his rise came to an abrupt end when it was found out that he was a cocaine user. That shattered his reputation.
The Leverkusen side Daum built went on to reach the Champions League final a couple of years later.
However, Daum wasn't done with football management after the cocaine scandal. Besiktas, who won the Turkish league with him in charge back in 1995, gave him a lifeline and he's actually even won more after the scandal. He delivered two Turkish titles to Fenerbahce in 2004 and 2005, having also won the Austrian Bundesliga title with Vienna in 2003.
He's worked with a number of smaller teams in recent years and his last job was in charge of the Romanian national team that let him go after a disappointing World Cup qualifying campaign.
You'll do well to find a manager with more experience than Daum, who has 995 games to his name. With many league titles, he has also shown that he can be a very successful manager in the right circumstances.
#4 Walter Mazzarri
Walter Mazzarri worked in the Premier League last season, but got sacked by Watford only one season into his three-year contract. A run of six consecutive defeats at the end of the season was the reason for it. Even though he ended up delivering what was demanded of him - Premier League survival.
We shouldn't read too much into the Watford firing though as the Hornets have now switched bosses in four consecutive seasons. Overall, they have had nine different managers since Malky MacKay's second spell at the club ended in 2011.
The 56-year-old Mazzarri made a name for himself at Napoli. The club had started its second season back in the Serie A when Mazzari was appointed in October 2009. He molded a struggling team into a TOP 6 side that won the Italian Cup in 2012 by beating Juventus 2-0. It was the only loss Juve suffered that season in all competitions.
Mazzarri also delivered Napoli their first ever place in the Champions League and a 2nd place finish in 2012/13, which was the clubs best result in over 20 years. He ended up leaving after the very successful season.
Before taking over at Watford, a short and disappointing stint at Inter left a stain on Mazzarri's resume, but his success in Italy also includes a cup final in 2009 with Sampdoria. Only a penalty shootout loss to Lazio denied the club its first trophy in 25 years.
Mazzarri is well respected in Italy and shouldn't be without a job for long. Especially considering how often teams there tend to change their managers.
His time in England came to a disappointing end, but during that year, there were some outstanding results, like beating Manchester United and Arsenal. Not every manager can do that while in charge of a small team, can they?
#3 Laurent Blanc
You could say Laurent Blanc has been very lucky in his managerial career, getting the chance to manage top teams like France and PSG. However, his spell with Bordeaux tends to be forgotten.
Blanc led Bordeaux to a 2nd-place finish in his debut season and a league title a year later in 2009. During the season, his team posted a new league record with 11 consecutive wins.
In 2009/10, Blanc's Bordeaux was drawn in the same Champions League group as Bayern and Juventus. They surprisingly ended up with an unbeaten record, just two points off the maximum 18. The European season ended with a quarter-finals loss to Lyon.
At PSG, Blanc, of course, won basically everything there is to win domestically with three league titles, two cups and also three league cups in three years. He was let go because the team failed to get over the hump in Europe.
PSG crashed out at the quarter-finals stage in each of Blanc's seasons in charge. However, they didn't even make it that far last season, after he left, so maybe they actually shouldn't have gotten rid of him.
Blanc reportedly received a compensation of €22 million following his dismissal, which I guess currently allows him to enjoy all the best life has to offer, but he should be back on the saddle, sooner, rather than later, and it will be fascinating to see if he can replicate the success he's enjoyed so far.
#2 Thomas Tuchel
If Pereira is the "new Mourinho", then Thomas Tuchel is certainly the new Jurgen Klopp. Both are former defenders that worked at Mainz before getting their big break at Dortmund. Tuchel was, in fact, the direct successor to Klopp in Spring 2015.
Tuchel left Dortmund last May after winning the German Cup. It ended up being the only trophy he won during his time at the club, but the results there were impressive, nevertheless.
Dortmund won 63% of matches during Tuchel's time at the club, which included an 11-game winning streak in the Bundesliga. His points average in the Bundesliga is better than any other manager in club history. Quite a feat considering what Klopp managed to do there.
Following his resignation, which came a year before his contract was up, Tuchel has been linked with many Premier League clubs. Even with Arsenal, before Arsene Wenger's contract extension was announced.
Everton has also been paired with the German, as well as Leicester City, before they went with Claude Puel. But you got to feel that Tuchel's career will follow the footsteps of Klopp. In the sense that he won't take the reigns of a mediocre team. Considering this, I think we'll have to wait a while to see his next step.
Bayern might be targeting him as their next long-term boss, so Tuchel could even stay unemployed until next season.
#1 Carlo Ancelotti
Four league titles, all in TOP 5 European leagues, three Champions League wins and over ten cup wins combined, from his stints in different nations, Carlo Ancelotti is, by far, the most decorated manager in football, who is currently unemployed. He, honestly, doesn't need much of an introduction
The Italian hasn't had to apply for jobs for a while now, teams simply come to him and not just teams. We're talking about top European clubs. He'll certainly be the first name to be linked with the post, if there's an opening at any of the bigger sides in the near future.
Ancelotti had some tough times during his only full season in charge of Bayern, but still delivered the Bundesliga title and added two German Super Cups as a bonus. The Champions League campaign ended in disappointment, but there's no shame in losing to Real Madrid, and it happened only after extra time in the quarter-finals.
The sacking at the start of this season will likely only give the 58-year-old further motivation to achieve more, even though he's done it all already.
Ancelotti's current managerial record reads 1030 games, 607 wins, 1917 goals scored and 890 conceded. His winning percentage is at 58.93.
It's worth noting that Sir Alex Ferguson, who's widely regarded as one of the most successful football managers in the modern era, ended his career with a win percentage of 58.1.
