tinkerman

British

/ ˈtɪŋkəˌmən /

noun

informal soccer a manager or coach who continually experiments by changing the personnel or formation of a team from game to game

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The constant changing has left Maresca open to criticisms of being too much of a 'tinkerman', an unwanted nickname once given to his compatriot Claudio Ranieri at Chelsea.

From BBC

Hysterical tinkerman Ralf Rangnick makes 11 changes for the second game in a row, reverting to the team that beat Crystal Palace last weekend.

From The Guardian

The 'Tinkerman' nickname he was given at Chelsea and the famous 'dilly-ding, dilly-dong' catchphrase he coined at Leicester as he tried to take the pressure off his players on the run-in to their momentous achievement have gone down in Premier League folklore.

From BBC

The Premier League’s original Tinkerman, Claudio Ranieri, knows all about the benefits and perils of high-intensity squad juggling, and it will not have gone unnoticed how Emery has attacked this project with a penchant for impatiently shuffling his pack – before and during games.

From The Guardian

As Ranieri was known as the Tinkerman for his habit of constantly changing team lineups when he was at Chelsea, it was a safe bet that he would change things around.

From The Guardian

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023