Building a successful career as a manager necessitates a wide range of talents, one of the most crucial of which is the ability to manage players. Here are the seven most liked players in this year’s EFL Championship.
Tactical knowledge and the capacity to shout nonstop for 90 minutes will only take you so far as a football manager. To succeed in professional football management, managers must have strong man-management abilities and the capacity to maintain a positive attitude under pressure.Niceness, of course,
does not imply being a doormat. Indeed, a manager who lets his players walk all over him is unlikely to remain long in the position. However, being ‘likeable’ in this context means being able to foster a positive culture inside a club, seeing all employees as critical to the club’s success, and contributing to the creation of an atmosphere in which ideals are upheld while success on the field is sought.
With all of this in mind, Football League World has ranked the seven nicest managers in the EFL Championship as the 2026-27 season gets underway. They may not all be the division’s most successful managers, but these seven have characteristics that make them enjoyable to work for.
7Kim Hellberg
The majority of Championship managers have been in place for less than a year, which speaks to how unstable the job is these days, but our list begins with someone who has only been in the English league for eight months, since his appointment at Middlesbrough.
Kim Hellberg stopped from playing at the age of 22 in order to focus on his coaching career, and it’s safe to say that decision has paid off. Hellberg’s manner suggests that he is conscious of how fortunate he is to have won a senior place at an English club, and his “Hell-Ball” playing style has enthralled the Borough faithful since his arrival.
He also displayed a sneaky sense of humour following his appointment to the Middlesbrough role, stating, “I’ve actually never used this structure in my life before.”
6Steven Schumacher
Everybody enjoys an underdog story, and Steven Schumacher’s narrative serves as a reminder that persistence and self-belief are essential in the often uncertain business of football management.
Steven Schumacher was appointed manager of Stoke City in December 2023, after winning the League One Manager of the Year award with Plymouth Argyle in the 2022-23 season. He barely lasted nine months in the post, but his dismissal from Stoke was largely viewed as harsh.
Stoke were already in difficulty when he arrived, but he guided them to safety at the conclusion of the 2023-24 season, and his dismissal at the start of the next season, after Stoke had won two of their first five games, surprised the manager himself.
Since then, Schumacher has mostly mocked Stoke’s decision. He was appointed manager of Bolton Wanderers in January 2025, restored the club to the Championship at the end of the 2025-26 season, and is still a popular figure at The Toughsheet Community Stadium.
5John Eustace
There are few quieter managers in the Championship than Derby County’s John Eustace. While some in the division are overly dramatic on the sidelines, the Rams’ coach prefers to let his guys speak for themselves on the field.
Eustace has developed a poker-faced personality since managing Derby, and it has paid off. He has a well-deserved reputation as a good manager to work for, and he has matched that with on-field success, navigating the Rams away from relegation at the end of 2024-25 and then to within a whisker of a play-off spot at the end of 2025-26.
4Mark Robins
The advantage of hindsight suggests that it was probably the proper moment for the club to make a change, but when Mark Robins was fired by Coventry City in November 2024, Sky Blues fans were shocked because Robins had formed such a close bond with them.
Robins was only out of employment for five weeks before joining Stoke City, and the club has had little reason to regret hiring him. The manager does not have a very cheerful attitude, but he is well-versed in the game and appears to know which buttons to push with the fans.
When his Stoke team struggled near the end of last season, he was reported by the BBC to have said that he wanted to “move people on who are mercenary, don’t want to train, and don’t want to work hard,” which is exactly what fans need to hear at the end of a long season when things haven’t always gone well on the pitch.
3John Mousinho
No surprise that John Mousinho is so popular at Fratton Park. He was appointed manager of Portsmouth in January 2023 and has led the club from League One to the Championship, where they have remained.
It’s worth mentioning that when he was appointed three and a half years ago, Pompey CEO Andrew Cullen remarked that “John possesses real leadership and motivational skills, as evidenced by his position as captain at a number of clubs and election as PFA chairman.”” Mousinho has occasionally been linked with other clubs, and after the end of the 2025-26 season, it was possible that he might be convinced to leave the club to join Bristol City.
But one comment in particular grabbed out as an example of his interpersonal skills. When asked about the rumours by BBC Radio Solent at the end of June, Mousinho said, “I was very clear at the back end of the season that it wasn’t a desire that I wanted to leave, I’ve spoken to a lot of Portsmouth fans this summer who said it’s been a tough summer and some of them are surprised to see me back in and around Southsea.”
His intimate relationship with the club’s fans is a major reason he remains with the club.
2Phil Parkinson
Wrexham’s amazing journey from the National League to the Championship in recent years has shown an intriguing contrast. Parkinson was hired manager in large part because he was a lower-division journeyman who was familiar with the club’s current situation.
He is still around after more than five years. He is the division’s longest-serving manager, and he has grown with the team as they have progressed through the divisions. Furthermore, Parkinson’s progress has occurred without sacrificing what made him a strong manager in the first place.
In May 2026, the BBC looked into the reasons for his success, and one comment from former Wrexham captain Ben Tozer struck out. He described Parkinson as “a calming figure around the place,” and considering the amount of change that has occurred at The Racecourse Ground since he first arrived, that calming presence will be critical in preserving the upward trajectory they have been on since his appointment.
1Tony Mowbray
If adversity can help a manager develop clarity of thought about their profession, Blackburn Rovers manager Tony Mowbray has a better grasp than most. Mowbray lost his wife to cancer when she was 26 years old at the beginning of 1995, and 29 years later, he was diagnosed with colon cancer, from which he has since recovered completely.
In June, after returning to Ewood Park, Mowbray talked movingly about his good fortune. “When I walk around the Christie Hospital in Manchester and see hundreds of very, very seriously ill people with bandanas on, no hair, and looking very frail, it makes me realise how fortunate I am in life,” he said, adding, “I feel really blessed, honoured, and proud to be returning to such an amazing football club. I have wonderful recollections of my stay here, and I want to attempt and recreate them if possible.”
With nearly a quarter of a century of managerial experience, Mowbray’s down-to-earth demeanour has made him a popular figure throughout the game, and Blackburn’s 2-2 draw at Wolverhampton Wanderers in the first Championship game of the 2026-27 season suggested that pre-season predictions of their impending relegation were slightly exaggerated.
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