Is the Premier League the most attractive league in the world for managers?

In recent years it feels like the Premier League has struggled to attract the real world class players. Spain and Germany are seen as the preferred destinations and then Italy and even PSG have overtaken Premier League's pulling power for the real best players in the world. The last time a Premier League side had any player in the top three for the Ballon D'or was in 2008, when Cristiano Ronaldo and Fernando Torres were first and third respectively. Since then only two players from outside of Real Madrid and Barcelona have made the top three; both played for Bayern Munich. Of the 23 footballers nominated in 2015, just four came from the Premier League.

However, with the recent news of Pep Guardiola joining Manchester City, perhaps the Premier League has a new selling point. Rather than attracting the best footballers in the world, it seems that the Premier League has a allure for football managers. This follows Jürgen Klopp's desire to challenge himself in England, Jose Mourinho return and still desperate want to stay in the country, Louis Van Gaal finishing his career here, Gus Hiddink making a second appearance, Carlo Ancelotti considering a return and Arsene Wenger staying at Arsenal for 20 years.

If Mourinho does move to Manchester United as rumoured, the Premier League would suddenly be home to the best and most famous managers in the world. It would be a tactical playground, where the biggest clubs have appointed the world's most renowned managers to turn them into success stories. Whilst Klopp decided to challenge himself with a big job at Liverpool, Guardiola has stepped into the readymade, perfect set-up at Manchester City. Arsenal may finally have overcome their final hurdle, making big money signings and Wenger seems hungrier than he has been in ten years to compete. This isn't even including Chelsea who no doubt will make a huge managerial signing themselves.

There is clearly something very alluring about the Premier League for the top managers, even those that have since left such as Rafael Benitez and Carlo Ancelotti have spoken of their real desire to return and challenge themselves again. Perhaps it is the competitiveness of the competition. Whilst not necessarily having that many different winners over the past 24 years, the Premier League has an almost unique competitive element in that its very worst teams do challenge the very best. It has a frantic pace which challenges managers to think faster and react quicker to the game which could and does change very quickly.

I think this could be a start of a very good trend for the Premier League which is clearly pulling managers in and it wouldn't be a surprise to see some managers who haven't yet dipped their toes into the pool, take the risk. The likes of Diego Simeone, Antonio Conte, Laurent Blanc and Massimo Allegri are surely not far away from Chelsea's thoughts when they contemplate appointing a new manager. Looking across at their rivals, they know they're now competing with the biggest and best names in the managerial world.

The Premiership has had its halcyon days - the world turns and influence moves on to spend time elsewhere.
The profits might be still going up and up, the sponsors and broadcasters might be paying bundles more, the players and managers might be seeing their earnings go up and up.... but there is little of the magic left that once dragged so many 'non-football' people to watch the sport.  I mean of course the days of Beckham, Keane, Cantona and Ferguson etc - ability plus oodles of unique personality clashes.
Football has returned to be the play-thing of its hardened seasoned followers - and I don't think that's ever enough these days.  An enthusiastic casual audience is a bigger cog than many would think, and I feel that audience has moved on to other things years ago.

You might say the Premiership has become the Pension Security Fund for 'good' Managers that want to make money whilst not being overly concerned with drive and ambition anymore.

When a manager can be sacked and still given a multi million pound pay out you can see why the Premier League is damned attractive. Don't know if by "walking" Remi Garde has lost any money that he's have gotten through being sacked but even so, he'd signed a three year contract and served only four months before walking. Chances are he'll get another well paid job elsewhere.

However, if you or I walked out of a job and then went for another job, would our prospective employers want to hire someone who quits after four months when the going gets tough and blames his staff for being awful as a reason for failure? I think not.

Every week there's tens of thousands of fans screaming at managers "I could do better" and given how badly some teams have performed, you can't blame them for thinking so.

To be fair that's the same in other leagues around the world.