It’s that spooky time of year and so we’re taking a look at the 10 scariest Premier League managers to ever appear on the touchline.

This weekend’s Premier League football falls on Halloween so what better time to look back over the archives and find the 10 scariest men to ever manage in the league.

Let’s get into it.

10. Graeme Souness

They say players are a reflection of their manager and so perhaps it is no surprise that Kieron Dyer and Lee Bowyer fought each other while under the tutelage of Souness.

Souness is proper hard. You know the kind of hard that almost causes a riot when he plants a Galatasaray flag in the centre of Fenerbahce’s pitch.

Why is he so low then you may ask? That’s because he has got a heart of gold behind all that.

In his retirement years, he met a 14-year-old girl who suffers from a rare skin disease, Epidermolysis bullosa, and went on to swim the English Channel to raise money, getting £1 for charity.

9. Sir Alex Ferguson

It’s an obvious candidate with Ferguson as his hairdryer treatment is well known in football lore.

Get on the wrong side of him and he would give you the vengeful fury of a Scotsman who previously worked in a rough pub in Glasgow.

Wayne Rooney, a particular favourite target of Fergie, recalled a time when they were winning 1-0 away at Portsmouth and despite Rooney scoring, Ferguson “battered” him at half time.

Rooney, being the combustible character he is, gave it back and Ferguson let it be known who was in charge. The paint on the walls probably needed redoing.

8. Jose Mourinho

The reason why Jose makes the list is not because he is physically intimidating, but you’d imagine it’d be like playing against Jigsaw from the Saw movies.

Mourinho is a master of the mental mind games and would be able to manipulate you in such a way that you’d turn into Jack Nicholson in The Shining.

One day you’d wake up and you would have fully descended into madness with master Mourinho pulling the strings.

No thanks.

7. Iain Dowie

Is comparing him to Sloth from The Goonies harsh? Probably yes. Does he look him? Also probably yes.

Aside from his menacing look, Dowie was known for having a short fuse. He fell out with Simon Jordan and Robbie Savage (understandably) but also let his players know when they had wronged him.

In a recent interview with Planet Football, Clinton Morrison recalled that Dowie “had a bit of a temper where he could lose it, and he’s one you wouldn’t go toe-to-toe with for sure”.

6. Roy Keane

With us safe in the knowledge that Keane doesn’t know where we live, dare we say there is a soft centre to his supposed hardman shtick?

Keane obviously has very high standards and will let you know if you fall below them but his media appearances in his latter career have shown he does at least have some kind of heart and wit behind the tough exterior.

But even with that in mind, he is in the bottom 10 of managers we would want to cross.

And don’t you dare let your phone ring near him.

5. Paolo Di Canio

Can you name another Premier League manager whose actions led to a club changing the locks on their training ground?

When Di Canio resigned as Swindon boss in 2013, he reportedly waited three days before engaging in a midnight raid of the League One side’s training ground.

Di Canio and three members of his coaching staff went under the cover of darkness to “retrieve” mementoes of his 21 months in charge.

His strangeness was not limited to Swindon either. Whilst at Sunderland, he reportedly introduced a rule that players could not talk at lunchtime. He banned fried breakfasts (fair enough) and fell out with players like Lee Cattermole.

And there are few things scarier than someone who is unpredictable.

In 2012, against Swindon, Di Canio subbed off his 21-year-old keeper just 21 minutes into a game against Preston. With the score at 2-0, Di Canio then proceeded to tear into this young player, describing it as ‘one of the worst players I have ever seen in a football match’.

Good luck to anyone who gets on the wrong side of him.

4. Ian Holloway

The reason Holloway is so high is you’d never know where you stand with him.

One minute he’s your best mate, the next he’s got a face of thunder.

He was famously outspoken whilst in charge at Blackpool and he has only got more eccentric in recent years.

The Bristolian is the current manager of Swindon and, after speaking in a tone that would not be out of place at Sunday dinner with your grandmother, he out of nowhere started banging his chest, chanting “D M W”.

Then with eyes as wide as a vinyl record, he shouts “DEAD MAN WALKING.”

How can you reason with a man like that? Knowing that is somewhere in him, lurking, waiting for a moment to strike. That is the kind of frightening behaviour that keeps you up at night.

3. Felix Magath

What’s more haunting than looking scary? Looking friendly but being anything but.

Magath looks like a friendly German uncle you may have. He passes you sweets under the table and ruffles your hair but anyone at Fulham in 2014 will know this Danger Mouse lookalike was anything but warm and cuddly.

After the relaxed nature of Martin Jol, Fulham’s owners sought to install discipline into the team and so appointed Magath.

His credentials were there. He won the Bundesliga on three occasions. He was named German Football Manager of the Year in 2003, 2005 and 2009. He’d been at clubs like Bayern Munich but Magath came with a reputation of not only being a hard taskmaster, but also a crazed one at that.

In Germany, he gained the nickname Saddam after the fallen dictator for training methods that included sending the Bayern squad running through Alpine woods in the summer only to then hide their water bottles.

Whilst at Fulham, Brede Hangeland was given a recovery programme for a thigh injury only for Magath to send a kitman to a local Tesco and buy a block of cheese. According to Magath, the cheese had soothing effects and Hangeland was told to rub it on his injury. He soon left for Brighton.

He would have three training sessions in a day, one of which was solely devoted to running, and even Premier League footballers could not cope.

And while Hannibal Lecter also shared that innocent-at-first, unnerving-underneath quality, at least his methods brought results. Magath managed 20 games at Craven Cottage and lost 12 of them.

2. Marcelo Bielsa

There’s a reason Bielsa is known as El Loco.

Google his name and try and find a single photo where he does not have a face like thunder.

He stays up late, poring over VHS while his wife presumably asks if he fancies watching a movie tonight. The Leeds United hero is famed for being able to watch two matches at the same time and what kind of sane person can do that?

But the scariest story about him comes back in 1992. When faced with angry Newell’s Old Boys fans outside his home, Bielsa walked out to meet the mob.

He steps out of his house in his pyjamas, walks towards them and reveals a live hand grenade in his hand. Leave, he says, or he pulls the pin.

The fans scarper as he shouts “Do you still want to talk?”

That makes us ask the question of why does he even have a live hand grenade in his home? But one question we don’t need answering is, is Bielsa scary?

1. Nigel Pearson

There’s few managers where you feel an actual threat of violence but Pearson fits that bill.

Just watch the famous Ostrich press conference and see the eyes of a killer.

This is a man who was rumoured to have fought off a pack of wolves barehanded during a holiday in Romania in 2007.

Pearson is frightening because he could batter you with ease and not even blink an eye.

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