There are many rivalries between top Premier League managers this season. Will Pep Guardiola have the tactical edge over Erik ten Hag? Can Mikel Arteta finally overcome Jurgen Klopp? How will Frank Lampard far against David Moyes? Only time – and a few football matches – will tell. When it comes to the far more important matter of watches, however, we don't need to wait to know who among the top flight gaffers is on top.
A quality piece of wrist candy is a vital component of the ongoing style evolution taking place in dugouts of English football – see Pep’s fine-gauge sweaters, Arteta's growing confidence in tonal tailoring, Klopp's strong cap game, Frank Lampard’s Thom Sweeney suits – with a high-end Swiss timepiece now an essential part of the modern football manager’s touchline uniform.
And while some of the watches you’ll clock in press conferences and studio appearances owe their presence to brand partnerships (looking at you, Hublot) other managers are demonstrating some serious watch nous. This is how we rate some of the Premier League gaffers heading into the watch league table in 2022/23.
Not only will Jürgen Klopp’s snappily-named IWC Perpetual Calendar Digitate Date-Month Edition ‘50 Years Aquatimer’ – jeez – tell you the date, month and time, but it will also let you know whether or not it’s a leap year (one of the most difficult complications to achieve in watchmaking). It also features a flyback chronograph function, meaning you can reset and restart the stopwatch hand with a single push of a side button (another complication that’s properly difficult to fit into something small enough to slip onto your wrist). Being a dive watch, you can do all of this to a depth of 100 metres (not necessarily the most essential of functions for a football manager, we’ll grant you). Only 50 pieces were made – the same amount, and we counted them all, as the number of managers who’ve won the Champion’s League. Kloop and a handful of his squad – Jordan Henderson, Mo Salah and Virgil van Dijk – celebrated their 2020 Premier League victory with some Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore customised in, you guessed it, Liverpool colours. Classy.
When Thomas Tuchel took up the position of Chelsea boss in January 2021, he became the latest in a long line of managers to be presented with a watch from the club’s official timekeeper, Hublot. So far, timepieces from the Swiss manufacturer have proved talismanic. Four months after taking the reins at the West London club, Tuchel won the Champion’s League with an all-black Classic Fusion strapped to his wrist. Nine months later, the German lifted the Club World Cup wearing a similar all-black Classic Fusion Chronograph. Hublot will once again be keeping time at the FIFA World Cup later this year, so expect to see plenty of cuff-shredding Big Bangs on the wrists of match officials and studio pundits in Qatar.
His whiteboard doodles have been getting a fair bit of airtime from Arsenal’s All or Nothing doco, as has his decision to play ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ at the Gunners’ training ground ahead of a game against Liverpool last season. But banter aside there’s a feelgood factor around Arsenal at the moment, with homegrowns Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe fully backing Arteta to lead them back into the top four or higher. Whether or not his apprenticeship under Pep Guardiola will bear fruit and more trophies (FA Cup 2020 was a good start) we’ll have to see, but at least we know he learnt a lot from the Spanish master in the style and watch stakes. While preferring to keep his attire sleek and monotone, the watch he wears the most is a lovely Rolex Oyster Perpetual GMT-Master II from 2007. That was when Arteta helped secure European football for Everton as a player and duly signed a shiny new contract after being voted the club’s player of the year again, so maybe Arteta decided to treat himself to this robust classic. Great taste from one of the Premier League’s younger ever managers.
When Everton announced Frank Lampard as its new manager at the end of January, the club shot a soft-focus, close-crop promo video that looked more like a watch advert than a film introducing the incoming gaffer. The watch in frame? Patek Philippe’s Aquanaut Travel Time Ref 5164A –yours for £31,430. Lamps has a proven soft spot for Patek Philippe, having been previously photographed wearing a white-gold Nautilus and the orange-accented Aquanaut Chronograph (as well as several Hublots and a Richard Mille).
Conte’s watch costs almost as much as the car he used to drive to and from Chelsea’s Cobham Training Centre. His panda-dial Daytona in steel, aka the planet’s most sought-after Rolex, retails for £11,600 (if you can find one for twice that price on the pre-owned market, well done you). You can pick up a Next Generation Nissan Juke – Conte used to drive the older, cheaper model between Surrey and Stamford Bridge – for £19,200. Since moving to Tottenham, Conte’s stuck with the Rolex. We can’t tell you whether he’s chopped in the Juke.
Few people will envy the position Erik ten Hag finds himself in as the next tactical genius trying to make Manchester United great again. Since Sir Alex Ferguson left nearly 10 years ago, many managers have fallen victim to the pressure that comes with being Man U’s gaffer. Jose Mourinho, Louis van Gaal and the mighty David Moyes all left having fallen short. At least their wristwear was always on point, though (see below). For new man ten Hag, it seems that, like Arteta, he is a one watch man: loyal to a Breitling Colt Quartz model. For anyone wanting to follow in ten Hag's wristwear tastes, try the Chronomat B01 42 from Breitling's current collection.
Admit it, you didn’t have Moysie down as a watch guy, did you? Full disclosure: we didn’t either. It turns out the tenacious Scotsman has serious wrist game. During Moyes’ disastrous spell at Manchester United, the Everton legend would watch his side capitulate while wearing an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak – a watch more habitually found on the wrists of rappers and international DJ-producers. Since Moyes rediscovered his mojo at West Ham, the Hammers’ boss has plumped for one of Patek Philippe’s flagship models: the white-gold Annual Calendar Moonphase. Consider it the Rolls-Royce Phantom of Swiss-made timepieces.
Here are some of the watches we’ve appreciated Pep wearing over the years: the RM 010 AMC Automatic and RM 022 Tourbillon Aerodyne, both from Richard Mille, a Rolex Deepsea Sea-Dweller, a Cartier Santos, a Chopard Mille Miglia, and an IWC Big Pilot. From a style point of view, the latest might just top the lot: the chronically, tragically, unfathomably underrated Rolex Cellini. Pep at his most Pep. Dreamy.
Stevie-G is the pragmatic-midfielder-turned-possession-based-manger. He’s a level-headed guy. So it makes sense that he’d wear a level-headed watch. And he does. An Apple Watch. What seems a little out of character for the no-nonsense, hard-tackling Liverpudlian is the power-watch Gerrard’s been sporting – with power suits and power double-monk shoes – since joining Aston Villa: Patek Philippe’s mighty Nautilus Ref. 5712/1A-001, one of (and we’re going to appropriate Danny Dyer here) the nawtiest little Nautiluses Patek has ever produced.
Brendan Rodgers used to be an IWC man. During his stint managing Liverpool, the Northern Irishman would pace the dugout wearing a special edition of the Portuguese Yacht Club Chronograph, a watch that was launched in support of the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation. Since arriving at the King Power Stadium, Rodgers is most regularly spotted wearing Rolex’s black-dial steel Daytona. Whether Rogers tracks the price of his particular Rolex on pre-owned watch websites, only he could tell you. If he does, he’ll know he’s got himself a nice little Bunsen.
Cometh the hour, cometh the man, cometh the waistcoat. When, in 2018, Gareth Southgate secured England a place in the World Cup semi-finals – and himself a spot in our pantheon of National Treasures – he did so wearing an M&S waistcoat and Hublot’s Big Bang FIFA World Cup smartwatch. Three years later, the beautiful game’s most unlikely style hero – and that appellation will depend very much on your own definition of ‘style’ – had ditched the vest and upgraded to Hublot’s next-gen UEFA EURO smartwatch. Southgate also has a strong analogue game, spotted wearing the brand’s Classic Fusion Bronze Bucherer BLUE, a collaboration between Bucherer that shouts the art of fusion much louder than you'll ever hear Gareth dishing out orders from the touchline. And yes, we know he’s technically not allowed on the list but name a manager who goes to more Premier League matches? Exactly.
Which leaves us with one other notable mention...
He may no longer ply his trade in the Premier League but it would be remiss of us not to include football’s pantomime villain in a list such as this. So deep does the affinity between Hublot and José Mourinho run, that during his second stint at Chelsea, the Swiss horologist named a watch after him – the King Power Jose Mourinho Special One. Via calamitous spells at Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur, Mourinho is now at Roma, where he is berating refs and bugging fans while wearing a lightweight Hublot Big Bang Unico Titanium.
