Only Ipswich Town’s George Burley in 2001 has been awarded the Premier League Manager of the Year without winning the title.
Sir Alex Ferguson will again be a shoe-in for the 2009 award for his achievements in winning the League, the World Club Championship, the Carling Cup and making the Champions League final.
But there are three managers have stood out as contenders for the alternative manager of the year award, the boss who has exceeded expectations their non-Top Four club.
Tony Pulis at Stoke City is one, utilising the physical resources at his disposal wisely, augmenting the squad who took them up from the Championship with players with Premier League experience like goalkeeper Thomas Sorensen and striker James Beattie.
Roy Hodgson is a second, taking Fulham from the verge of relegation last season to a Europa League spot this. Hodgson’s achievement is hugely impressive, in that the former Blackburn boss had made only a few signings in crucial positions, with Mark Schwarzer, Andy Johnson and Brede Hangeland the standout players.
Much of that underachieving Fulham squad of 2008 have been transformed in 2009, with Hodgson restoring his Premier League reputation after his disastrous spell at Blackburn in 1997-1998.
It is the third manager, Steve Bruce at Wigan, who presents the most interesting case study.
Whilst Pulis and Hodgson will retain most of the players that helped their respective clubs to success, Bruce will have to tear it up and start again.
Having lost Wilson Palacios and Emile Heskey in January, Wigan did not struggle as much as many expected by the loss of their two best players, though they seemed to lose their motivation after reaching the safety of 41 points, gathering only one point in the seven games before the final-day win over Portsmouth.
However, this summer will see further big-name players leave. Antonio Valencia will probably join Real Madrid, Amr Zaki will not be signed on a permanent deal, whilst the influential Paul Scharner wants to leave the club to further his international ambitions.
How is Bruce going to replace them all? His purchase of Hugo Rodallega in January seems astute, with Bruce praising the 23-year-old’s ‘coming-of-age’ performance against Manchester United in May.
The Colombian gave Nemanja Vidic a torrid time that night, scoring a goal, mixing physicality with pace and showing the courage to get up from an accidental Vidic karate chop to his throat to start the battle all over again.
But these off-the-radar signings are getting more and more difficult for Bruce. His successes in finding Rodallega, Palacios and Maynor Figueroa were impressive, but there is not a conveyor belt of South American talent, and certainly not of players with enough international caps to justify the Home Office awarding a work permit to them.
Chairman Dave Whelan can no longer afford to spend the upper-level wages that tempted Heskey to The JJB, and so even middle-quality Premier League players may be reluctant to sign up with Bruce, playing in front a ¾ full stadium in an unashamed rugby league town.
Moreover, aesthetically Wigan is not exactly a tempting town for players, with a nightlife that would make Georgi Hristov long for Barnsley as a veritable Girls-of-the-Playboy-Mansion in comparison.
The summer’s recruitment is therefore inextricably bound up in the personality of Bruce.
There is a perhaps apocryphal story that then Derby County manager Jim Smith insisted that new Italian signing Stefano Eranio be driven from the airport on a convoluted route through the Peak District so that he would not see the full horrors of the town of Derby before his signature was in the bag!
There would be none of that subterfuge from Bruce – he would tell the players straight, that Wigan could be a stepping stone to a bigger club, but that the town and the club were rough around the edges, and superstar status had to be earned rather than expected.
But, for all his talent and honesty, this summer will be the hardest of Bruce’s career so far. He will be shopping in football’s backwaters, or in the Premier League bargain bin for the Jermaine Pennant-type of player.
He will also have at the back of his mind that success breeds expectation, by far the most lethal factor an up-and-coming manager must face.
2001 Premier League Manager of the Year Burley took Ipswich to fifth in the table that year and led them to the UEFA Cup. Yet the season after, he oversaw their relegation and was sacked soon after. Bruce must be wary of a similar fate.