Wilkinson, who is the last English manager to have won the league title with a top-flight club after guiding Leeds to success in 1992, also revealed that, while his plans became bogged down in FA bureaucracy, others were only too happy to embrace them.
Pellegrini spent five years at Villarreal, an ambitious, yet still provincial and relatively underfunded club in Spain's Liga, guiding it to four top-five finishes, as well as the Champions League semifinal in 2005-06.
Leicester's Richard Cockerill will hope to retain his Director of Rugby of the Season award after guiding Tigers to the top of the table for the second consecutive season but he is vying with the impressive Jim Mallinder at Saints.