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With the player of the year awards coming up in their droves - voted for by footballers, coaches, journalists and virtually everyone else - it got us thinking at MirrorFootball towers about the forgotten man, the manager.

Picking the manager of the year is a difficult task because of the huge disparity in budgets between the clubs, not to mention the playing personnel.

So what we asked our MirrorFootball experts was simple.

If every manager currently in the Premier League was handed an identical squad, who would win?

In short, who is the best pound-for-pound manager in the league?

Here are their answers:

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If everyone had the same squad and resources at their disposal, I think four managers would make the biggest impression.

Jose Mourinho would win the title thanks to his win at all costs attitude. Arsene Wenger would play the prettiest and best football because that's his philosophy.

Sean Dyche's team would work hardest of all and warm all of our hearts. And Brendan Rodgers' team would be "exceptional" at all times.

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Burnley and Sean Dyche have been good for English football this season by proving you don't have to gamble the club's future to stay in the Premier League after promotion. The Turf Moor club had a net spend of only £8m this summer and look set to keep fighting for survival right to the end. The victory over Manchester City proved you can compensate for the lack of cash by good planning and hard work.

And Dyche, even after a sticky start, has always been as open and entertaining as his team.

Just contrast his performances with the other two promoted clubs and their managers. Harry Redknapp resigned in frustration after his big-money signings failed while Nigel Pearson staggers from one PR disaster to another with his side bottom. Dyche keeps it all in perspective. If Burnley get relegated, they will try and get promoted back again next season.

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In a sense, the question is unanswerable, unless you have a series of complicated clauses. For instance, what is the make-up of the squad.

Is it a team of Galacticos like Real Madrid, or a struggling one like Sunderland? The best manager to take over one, is not necessarily the best to assume control of the other.

Likewise, what is the opposition? Is it a squad expected to have success in the Champions' League, or one merely to be competitive in the Premier League. Again, different qualities are required.

So, for instance, if the squad was a struggling one, then you'd go for Tony Pulis, no question, or beyond him, Sam Allardyce, and likewise both of those managers if you want a relative guarantee of safety and consistency in the division.

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A more complex tactical challenge and attractive football though? Well Brendan Rodgers provides both of those, but has yet to show he can do it in Europe. Jose Mourinho has the ruthless tactical acumen - usually - but not the attractive style, and so far with a Premier League team at least, not the Champions' League pedigree.

As for managing Galacticos, well Mourinho wasn't too successful at the Bernabeu in keeping a lid on that box of egos, while even Pellegrini has struggled in that area, it seems, in recent months.

The one manager who has shown consistency across all that criteria is Arsene Wenger, who has proved himself over a decade or more. So, even though the question is fundamentally flawed and therefore essentially unanswerable, the answer is Arsene Wenger . Make of that what you will.

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Ronald Koeman showed what he can do having lost half a team last summer and in the face of an injury crisis that threatened to derail Southampton’s season.

Imagine what might be possible if the Dutchman was handed the same resources and on a level playing field with his rivals.

Arguably overcome more adversity than any other Premier League manager to overachieve more than any other Premier League manager and continue defying the doubters.

Southampton were widely tipped for relegation but Koeman has kept them in the hunt for a Champions League place for most of the season.

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His team are just as capable of grinding out results as playing attractive football and results against likes of Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal show Koeman is more than a tactical match for the biggest top-flight bosses.

Conducts himself well on the pitch but, at the same time, is no shrinking violet as seen in his relationship with Louis Van Gaal and League Cup touchline clash with Sheffield United’s staff.

Crucially hasn't shown signs of crossing the line with his behaviour.

All factors combined, Koeman gets the nod over other possibles like Sean Dyche, Garry Monk, Tony Pulis, Mark Hughes and Jose Mourinho.

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As Dave Maddock alludes to above, this isn't a precise and scientific test. But science was always pretty boring so I won't apologise for that.

I'm imagining a blank team made up of bald, identical players like on the old Pro Evolution Soccer games. And if that's the case, then I think Tony Pulis just pips Jose Mourinho to the title.

Jose would give it a good old go, and he'd undoubtedly get the most headlines, but based on what's done at Stoke, Palace and now West Brom there seems no doubt that Pulis would win out, with Sean Dyche probably third and then a tussle for fourth including Garry Monk, Ronald Koeman and - given what he's achieved throughout his career with average players - maybe even Alan Pardew.

But let's not get too far down the league and into details I can't back up... Pulis is your man.

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Really, the winner has to come from Ronald Koeman, Garry Monk or Mark Hughes and I'm going to trumpet the achievements of Sparky.

Tony Pulis cheekily suggested recently that it was still his team, which was being so successful, but that is being disrespectful to the overhaul Hughes has made at the Brit.

To Pulis' strong pine of Peter Crouch, Steven Nzonzi, Ryan Shawcross and Asmir Begovic, Hughes has added talents like Bojan, Peter Odemwingie and Victor Moses.

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He has taken Stoke away from Pulis' direct style and their three-goal first-half demolition of Arsenal in December was as fine a display of football witnessed in the Premier League this season.

Hughes has done all this spending relatively little and Pulis overlooked the fact that his fellow Welshman does not have the cash he splashed around the Brit.

Hughes led Stoke to their first Premier League top-10 finish last season and is on course to surpass that by claiming eighth spot, which would be a fine achievement given the long-term injuries to the likes of Bojan and Odemwingie.

Irrespective of whether Burnley stay up - and their chances of survival soared with George Boyd's winner against Manchester City last weekend - it's got to be the Ginger Mourinho. In isolation, it is not just Sean Dyche's austerity budget at Turf Moor which sets him apart from his peers, although he has spent bobbins compared with QPR and Leicester, who came up from the Championship with the Clarets last May.

But Dyche has fostered a unique atmosphere among his players and Burnley supporters - because they do not flatter themselves with an overbearing sense of entitlement to stay in the Premier League. Contrast Dyche's cheerful, no-throat-lozenges-required attitude with Leicester boss Pearson, who damned Burnley with faint praise after the sides drew 2-2 at the King Power last October, complaining that the Clarets were "quite poor on the day" and that the Foxes had strengthened their squad more than their runners-up in the second tier the previous campaign.

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Yes, Nigel, but Burnley do not have mega-rich owners from Thailand who can wipe out £100 million of debt by turning most of it into equity. Dyche was fitted with a financial straitjacket at Turf Moor and he has never tried to wriggle out of it. Danny Ings looks like he will be on his way in the summer, whether Burnley are destined to kick off in the penthouse or below stairs in August, but if they pull off a great escape it will be a triumph for good housekeeping as well as heroic distribution of resources by the manager.

Honourable mentions, too, for Ronald Koeman, who proved a safe pair of hands when dealt a hospital pass at Southampton, Garry Monk at Swansea and Stoke's Mark Hughes. The Premier League table doesn't lie and nor will I - before a ball was kicked, none of us thought they would all be safe with two months to go.

Swansea continue to fly under the radar for the most part, but Garry Monk deserves a huge amount of credit for the job he is doing at the Liberty Stadium. Since taking the hotseat, the former defender has restored much of the solidity that had begun to seep away under the talented but flaky Michael Laudrup, dragging the Swans back into the upper echelons of the league in the process.

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That he has done so after losing a number of key players in the transfer market (Ben Davies, Michel Vorm, Wilfried Bony) speaks volumes of Monk's adaptability, while his acquisitions (Gylfi Sigurdsson, Jefferson Montero) have underlined the club's commitment to attacking football.

Monk has taken to Premier League management so smoothly that it is easy to forget that he is only 36. His potential is huge.

Obviously in any debate about the best manager in the Premier League you have to start with Jose Mourinho.

Yes he had the players at his disposal at Chelsea, Real Madrid and even Inter Milan to win the League. But he would any group of players is able to respond to him because of his discipline and his fierce work ethic.

Arsene Wenger would be up there based on his record with Arsenal over the last two decades. But I have to say that I am a big Ronald Koeman fan.

His Southampton team are even easier on the eye than they were under Mauricio Pochettino last season. Defensively they remain the strongest team in the League even though none of his back four are superstar names.

I also have to confess to being a big admirer of the work of Tony Pulis.

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To do what he did with Stoke was impressive enough. But to come back (after being dismissed as a long ball merchant at the Britannia Stadium) and do the same at Crystal Palace, then West Brom - and yes, they will now stay up - is quite something.

In each case he has turned his club’s home ground into a difficult place to go to. In each case he has built on a solid defence to frustrate the opposition and cultivated a cutting edge.

At Palace his team - virtually the same squad of players abandoned by Ian Holloway - actually played some good stuff.

They also rose from being a team completely written off for relegation to an outfit that could possibly have finished higher than mid-table had he arrived sooner.