"the manager has only a 15% influence on where a team finish in the league"

[dholliday]

The argument is that of the 20 premier league clubs, all of which have managers considered the top in the country, the difference between those 20 clubs is 15% down to the manager and mostly down to other factors like the fiannces and the players, etc, etc.

Now 15% is the difference between 1st and 3rd and 18th and 15th.

So the argument is, clubs in the premier league are sorted mostly by finances in to groups. the top 4 will always finish top 4 whoever manages them simply because they have much better players. And the bottom 5 will always be the bottom 5. Unless one of the top 4 appoints a manager not of premier league standard at all, they won't drop out. What the managers dictates is that last 15% whether you finish 1st or 2nd, 4th or 8th, or 19th or 16th. And that's huge.

But give Ferguson crystal palace and they won't finish 3rd, they'll just stay up. The manager can dictate where in that group you finish but not turn you into a club you're not.

See Martinez and Royle getting relegated, for instance.

That makes sense to me.

I think it's the only possible explanation for Avram Grant finishing 2nd.

That does make sense, and ironically the Cult Of The Manager is bigger now than what it was back in the days when the manager influenced far more than 15% (Brian Clough, Bobby Robson etc)

 

[Eggs]

But you can only bring in the players you can afford. And you can only keep players you can pay afford to give good wages, too.

It's not as simple as the club with the best managers finish the highest. Martinez is in my opinion a better manager than Pardew and Wenger a better manager than Mancini. But if you have more money, you can bring in better players.

We're not talking about the difference between a club managed by Alex Ferguson and a club managed by bill from the pub.

The argument is that of the 20 premier league clubs, all of which have managers considered the top in the country, the difference between those 20 clubs is 15% down to the manager and mostly down to other factors like the fiannces and the players, etc, etc.

Now 15% is the difference between 1st and 3rd and 18th and 15th.

So the argument is, clubs in the premier league are sorted mostly by finances in to groups. the top 4 will always finish top 4 whoever manages them simply because they have much better players. And the bottom 5 will always be the bottom 5. Unless one of the top 4 appoints a manager not of premier league standard at all, they won't drop out. What the managers dictates is that last 15% whether you finish 1st or 2rd. or 19th or 16th. And that's huge.

But give ferguson crystal palace and they won't finish 3rd, they'll just stay up. The manager can dictate where in that group you finish but not turn you into a club you're not.

See Martinez and Royle getting relegated, for instance/

That makes sense to me.

I think it's the only possible explanation for Avram Grant finishing 2nd.

...I'm not disagreeing with this. The best managers don't necessarily manage top clubs. The best managers don't necessarily win all the cups. As you say, you can only bring in the players you can afford, which is why I say judge a manger on the players he buys and sells. At a club like ours with limited funds its critical that monies aren't wasted. We are in that precarious position where a poor manager could literally be the difference in us staying up.

 

[roydo]

Interesting discussion this. Always thought that managers get way too much praise when things go well, and way too much blame when things go badly, but am revising this view atm. The impact one employee can have on a club is immense if you think about it. Like if Arsenal had gone for say, I dont know, the latest hotshot instead of Wenger 16 years ago, it is conceivable they would be nowhere near the level they are now. As a club, Emirates etc, not the current team.

And if we were relegated by Moyes, or someone else for that matter, 10 years ago, would we be where we are now?

 

[Azzurri]

Bollocks.

Who knows?

 

[Azzurri]

And I have to do analysis of performance every week, stats talk sh*te half the time.

 

[Allezfan]

Interesting discussion this. Always thought that managers get way too much praise when things go well, and way too much blame when things go badly, but am revising this view atm. The impact one employee can have on a club is immense if you think about it. Like if Arsenal had gone for say, I dont know, the latest hotshot instead of Wenger 16 years ago, it is conceivable they would be nowhere near the level they are now. As a club, Emirates etc, not the current team.

And if we were relegated by Moyes, or someone else for that matter, 10 years ago, would we be where we are now?

Fair points, that.

 

[lmurkder]

The bookies base their initial odds on the number of shots a team has. As statistics show that the number of games won is generally directly proportional to shots on target.

 

[Timak]

This has been something I've mentioned on here in the past.

There are reams of stats that look at what the "average" Premier League Manager should achieve given their spending each year (e.g. add up the points won in every game in the top flight for the past 30 years or so and compare the points they've gained compared to the percentage of the league payroll their team paid out)

So that the average manager can be said to get e.g. 40 points on a £40m wage bill but would take £100m to get 70 points. You can pretty much get every team in the league to within a few places by using this method.

What you find is that the vast, vast majority of managers cluster around this average point, so much so that they would be pretty much interchangeable. A Steve Bruce could be swapped for a Tony Pulis or a Gianfranco Zola and it wouldn't really make any difference at all to you points total/

You then have a small group of managers who do a lot worse than they should, however this generally results in them being sacked. Some get another chance and work their way back up to average (Lambert had a terrible first job, Rodgers likewise), some don't (John Barnes).

Then there are the outliers on the good end of the scale, this is a very small group that outpeform the average manager to a statistically significant amount. This generally results in them either winning things (e.g. Ferguson operated on the same budget as Wenger but won a lot more) or they eventually get a chance at a bigger club and either sink or swim. Allardyce was once in the elite group but is now in with the average lot. Moyes was one of THE best of all time at outperforming his budget which is no doubt why Man Utd took him on. Something like 0.5% of managers are in the company Moyes had us in.

Lets hope Roberto joins him in this, the chances are slim, but he is doing well so far.

 

[Allezfan]

I always said that given how well Moyes and Allardyce did when given free reign at a club it made me wonder whether the reason noone had matched those two in terms of points per pound is simply that noone else was given the time needed.

My guess is that neither Allardyce or Moyes will ever be able to reproduce those results elsewhere because they will lack the benefit of ten years in a single job.

It's possible that other managers would reach that level if chairmen were more patient.

 

[roydo]

I would say that 100% of the success Forest and Derby had, (Leagues and EC for younger listeners) was down to Clough/Taylor.

Similar with Shanks with that lot.

And defo with Howard and us.

But they are the exception rather than the rule. And were all beards ago in another age.

 

[Allezfan]

I would say that 100% of the success Forest and Derby had, (Leagues and EC for younger listeners) was down to Clough/Taylor.

Similar with Shanks with that lot.

And defo with Howard and us.

But they the exception rather than the rule. And were all beards ago in another age.

Yeah, different era is the main point.

I did a thing a while back where I went to company house and bought the company records of the big clubs in the 1980s.

And the difference between the wages of everton players now and city and chelsea now was the same as the difference between a 1st division and 4th division side then.

In 85, 86 and 87 the top wages paid were £2.1 million, £2.2 million and £2.4 million and we were spending £1.7 million, £1.9 million and £1.8 million on wages and were the best team in the league all three seasons.

So we were spending 81%, 85% and 75% of the wages that the top spenders were.

In 2009/10, 2010/11 and 20011/12 the biggest wage bills were 174 million, 190 million and 202 million. And we were paying 54 million, 58 million and 63 million.

So 31%, 30% and 31% of the wages the top spender is paying.

Kendall won the league paying 81% and 75% of the biggest wages. So he got 133% and 123% from his players per pound he was paying them compared to the other teams in the league.

If you achieve the same from our players in 2011-12, get 123 to 133% out of them, then you finish 7th, which is where we did finish. To even finish 6th you need to get 140% out of your players compared to their relative market worth in terms of wages as you're competing against players earning more money because their agents think they're worth more than they think your players are worth. 4th? It needs to be 238%, they need to out perform players being paid twice as much. And for 1st it's 310%. They need to play better than footballers who are earning more than 3 times as much money.

If we did have players of league winning quality, and we have done at various times, they often get tired of watching inferior players getting paid three times as much and winning trophies while doing it. See Rooney, Wayne.

 

[roydo]

Yeah, different era is the main point.

I did a thing a while back where I went to company house and bought the company records of the big clubs in the 1980s.

And the difference between the wages of everton players now and city and chelsea now was the same as the difference between a 1st division and 4th division side then.

In 85, 86 and 87 the top wages paid were £2.1 million, £2.2 million and £2.4 million and we were spending £1.7 million, £1.9 million and £1.8 million on wages and were the best team in the league all three seasons.

So we were spending 81%, 85% and 75% of the wages that the top spenders were.

In 2009/10, 2010/11 and 20011/12 the biggest wage bills were 174 million, 190 million and 202 million. And we were paying 54 million, 58 million and 63 million.

So 31%, 30% and 31% of the wages the top spender is paying.

Kendall won the league paying 81% and 75% of the biggest wages. So he got 133% and 123% from his players per pound he was paying them compared to the other teams in the league.

If you achieve the same from our players in 2011-12, get 123 to 133% out of them, then you finish 7th, which is where we did finish. To even finish 6th you need to get 140% out of your players compared to their relative market worth in terms of wages as you're competing against players earning more money because their agents think they're worth more than they think your players are worth. 4th? It needs to be 238%, they need to out perform players being paid twice as much. And for 1st it's 310%. They need to play better than footballers who are earning more than 3 times as much money.

If we did have players of league winning quality, and we have done at various times, they often get tired of watching inferior players getting paid three times as much and winning trophies while doing it. See Rooney, Wayne.

That is amazing that mate. We were are well off club back then, relatively, but other than Linekar, I dont remember mega transfer fees being paid by HK. Maybe Gray, but he was thought to have been cocked I thought. Still, interesting calibration of the performance against wages. never even thought of that before.

 

[Goat]

AF has just burnt my head right off.

 

[Allezfan]

That is amazing that mate. We were are well off club back then, relatively, but other than Linekar, I dont remember mega transfer fees being paid by HK. Maybe Gray, but he was thought to have been cocked I thought. Still, interesting calibration of the performance against wages. never even thought of that before.

To be fair, there is no manager in the current game who even comes close to Clough in terms of overachievment compared to finances.

In his prime, he probably could win us a league, here. Of course he'd also be offered four times the money to go somewhere else.

 

[lmurkder]

Yeah, different era is the main point.

I did a thing a while back where I went to company house and bought the company records of the big clubs in the 1980s.

And the difference between the wages of everton players now and city and chelsea now was the same as the difference between a 1st division and 4th division side then.

In 85, 86 and 87 the top wages paid were £2.1 million, £2.2 million and £2.4 million and we were spending £1.7 million, £1.9 million and £1.8 million on wages and were the best team in the league all three seasons.

So we were spending 81%, 85% and 75% of the wages that the top spenders were.

In 2009/10, 2010/11 and 20011/12 the biggest wage bills were 174 million, 190 million and 202 million. And we were paying 54 million, 58 million and 63 million.

So 31%, 30% and 31% of the wages the top spender is paying.

Kendall won the league paying 81% and 75% of the biggest wages. So he got 133% and 123% from his players per pound he was paying them compared to the other teams in the league.

If you achieve the same from our players in 2011-12, get 123 to 133% out of them, then you finish 7th, which is where we did finish. To even finish 6th you need to get 140% out of your players compared to their relative market worth in terms of wages as you're competing against players earning more money because their agents think they're worth more than they think your players are worth. 4th? It needs to be 238%, they need to out perform players being paid twice as much. And for 1st it's 310%. They need to play better than footballers who are earning more than 3 times as much money.

If we did have players of league winning quality, and we have done at various times, they often get tired of watching inferior players getting paid three times as much and winning trophies while doing it. See Rooney, Wayne.

Interesting read.

However sky money in 92 massively distorted things. Plus CL money.

As is the foreign tv money now.

Its meant a cluster of clubs have massive out spend on wages of everyone else.

That cluster wanted wage inflation. It was eventually in their interests to maintain it.