Premier League’s Highest-Paid Managers Rise as Its Champions Exit

Chelsea is paying Xabi Alonso a reported £13m a year, roughly $17.5m, less than five months after Real Madrid sacked him. That makes him one of the Premier League’s highest-paid managers, and Chelsea’s fifth permanent hire since Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital bought the club in 2022.

Two men who actually delivered are already gone from the list. Pep Guardiola stepped down at Manchester City after a decade of trophies. Arne Slot, who won the Premier League title in his first season at Liverpool, was sacked roughly a year after winning it. Neither exit was about money. Both changed the market anyway.

Guardiola and Slot Exit the Pay Table

Guardiola arrived at City in 2016 and built, in the words of outlets covering his exit, one of the greatest managerial eras the sport has seen. He left this summer on his own terms, closing his reign with a third FA Cup after City beat Chelsea 1-0 in the final. He is not retiring. Guardiola has moved into a Global Ambassador and technical adviser role with City Football Group, the multi-club organization behind Manchester City.

Slot’s exit was blunter. Liverpool’s own statement said he would depart his role as head coach with immediate effect, adding that he leaves with a league title and the club’s gratitude. He is the first Premier League title winning manager Liverpool have chosen to part with. An injury to striker Alexander Isak, a dip in form from Mohamed Salah and what an end of season review reportedly flagged as slow starts and late goals conceded all fed the decision, according to Anfield-focused outlet This Is Anfield’s reporting on the review. Andoni Iraola arrived from Bournemouth soon after, on a reported £10m salary, more than Slot was said to earn while he actually had the title to show for it.

Chelsea’s Fix for Its Chaos Costs £13m a Year

Alonso’s path to Stamford Bridge ran through one of the shortest big-club tenures in recent memory. He took the Real Madrid job last year and lasted 233 days, sacked in January after results slipped and reports described a dressing room strained by friction with senior players including Vinicius Junior, Jude Bellingham and Federico Valverde, per ESPN’s account of his time at the Bernabeu. Before that, Alonso had built a genuine reputation at Bayer Leverkusen, leading the German club to an unbeaten Bundesliga title in 2023-24 along with a domestic cup and a run to the Europa League final.

Chelsea hired him regardless, on a four-year deal starting July 1, with the club’s official announcement of Alonso as manager of the men’s team notable for the title itself. Calling him manager rather than head coach reads as a signal that Chelsea’s hierarchy wants to hand over more control than it gave recent predecessors.

Those predecessors did not last long.

• Mauricio Pochettino left after also clashing with the board over transfer recruitment, the same friction that would resurface with his successor.
• Enzo Maresca was hired in May 2024 after promoting Leicester City, won the UEFA Conference League and the FIFA Club World Cup, then was fired in January 2026 after also pushing back on recruitment decisions. He has since taken the Manchester City job.
• Liam Rosenior was promoted from sister club Strasbourg to bring continuity to a young squad, then was fired within months when results did not follow.

Alonso’s first weeks in the job were complicated before he even took a training session, when Marc Cucurella’s move to Real Madrid, the club Alonso had just left, reportedly caught the new Chelsea boss off guard. That saga is still playing out. Meanwhile Tottenham, home to another new arrival on this list, closed a summer transfer window that reportedly topped £237m in gross spending, a reminder that manager pay is only one line on an increasingly expensive ledger.

Why Would Anyone Want Nottingham Forest’s Job?

Because Evangelos Marinakis is paying £13m a year for it, reported by The Sun, and because Oliver Glasner had just won two trophies at Crystal Palace and still said yes. Forest is on its fifth permanent manager in under a year, a run of instability that has not stopped its Greek owner from opening the checkbook again.

The chaos has a timeline.

1. September 2025: Nuno Espirito Santo is fired after clashing with Marinakis, only months after guiding Forest to seventh place and a European return.
2. Autumn 2025: Ange Postecoglou lasts just eight games, gone within six weeks of taking over.
3. Winter 2025-26: Sean Dyche takes 25 games in charge before he too is removed.
4. February to June 2026: Vitor Pereira steadies Forest against relegation across 20 matches, then is fired in late June, with a termination clause reportedly triggered two minutes before it expired.
5. July 2026: Glasner arrives from Crystal Palace on a three year deal, Forest’s fifth permanent manager since the start of the 2025-26 season.

Glasner met Marinakis for dinner in Athens before agreeing terms, and has said the owner’s ambition, not the club’s recent record, sold him on the move. Asked whether the sackings worried him, he was direct.

It’s part of your job. On the other side, I don’t really think about this again.

Marinakis, for his part, wanted what he called a natural winner, someone who had actually lifted trophies, after a season in which Forest fell from seventh place to a finish one spot below 15th placed Palace. Palace fans have not forgiven Marinakis either, blaming him for fueling a UEFA investigation into their club’s ownership structure that saw Palace demoted from the Europa League to the Conference League, with Forest promoted into the Europa League as a result.

Where Every Manager Ranks This Summer

Football365 first compiled this list from reported figures, since Premier League clubs do not officially confirm manager salaries. Arteta’s deal at the top combines a base salary with a Champions League bonus, which is why his number looks different from a flat annual wage.

Guardiola’s old salary, reported at £20m, would have sat well clear of Arteta’s number and every other figure on this list. Its absence from the table is the whole story of this summer’s reshuffle in one line.

The Champion Earns Less Than the Man Who Replaced Him

Look past the top of the table and the pattern gets stranger. Eddie Howe delivered Newcastle’s first trophy in decades on £9m, and is now absorbing defeats to newly promoted Sunderland and a heavy loss to Barcelona while losing key players. Unai Emery turned Aston Villa from relegation candidates into Champions League regulars with silverware to show for it, on £9.5m, with Profitability and Sustainability Rules keeping a ceiling on how much further he can push. Both earn less than Iraola, who arrived at Liverpool from Bournemouth with no Premier League title to his name.

De Zerbi sits above all three on £12m despite a body of work in England that consists of keeping Tottenham up last season, a job he took only because Spurs had almost no leverage left in the negotiation. His deal runs five years, the longest on the list, and Football365’s own reporting on the contract flagged him as a manager without a history of sticking around.

What Happens When One of These Bets Goes Wrong

• Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR) – the Premier League’s financial control that caps how much money a club can lose over a multi-year assessment period, regardless of who signed the checks.

Every long contract on this list is a wager that results arrive before patience runs out. Chelsea’s own recent history shows how short that fuse can run: Maresca lasted about a year and a half, Rosenior far less. Alonso now has four guaranteed years, a number that looks generous until the next slow start and considerably less generous the moment it does.

De Zerbi’s five-year Tottenham deal carries the same exposure, and Spurs already have limited room to maneuver after a summer spending spree that reportedly topped £237m across the transfer window. Arsenal, by contrast, offer the counterexample. Arteta’s current deal expires next year, and an extension with an even larger pay packet looks likely, not because the market forced Arsenal’s hand but because he actually delivered the trophies that Wenger’s and Emery’s old Arsenal, a club that finished fifth the year before Arteta arrived, never could.

Forest churned through four permanent managers in the twelve months before Glasner arrived. He signed for three years, at a reported £13m, betting the fifth time is different.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why Are Premier League Manager Salaries Never Officially Confirmed?

Clubs treat manager contracts as private commercial matters and rarely release figures themselves. Nearly every number in circulation, including the £5m to £15m range reported this summer, comes from media reporting rather than club statements, which is why outlets compiling these lists caveat them as reported rather than confirmed.

Which Premier League Manager Has the Longest Contract Right Now?

Roberto De Zerbi’s five-year deal at Tottenham is the longest on the list, ahead of Xabi Alonso’s four-year Chelsea contract and Oliver Glasner’s three-year deal at Nottingham Forest. Reports have also flagged De Zerbi’s as the riskiest of the three given his history of short stays elsewhere.

What Are the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules?

The Profitability and Sustainability Rules, known as PSR, cap how much money a Premier League club can lose over a multi-year assessment period regardless of transfer or wage spending. Aston Villa’s own ceiling under Unai Emery has been attributed to that constraint rather than a lack of ambition.

Where Did Pep Guardiola Go After Leaving Manchester City?

Guardiola has not taken another head coaching job. He moved into a Global Ambassador and technical adviser role with City Football Group, the organization that also owns clubs including New York City FC and Melbourne City.