TacticalBet's Stats - The Managers

Following the much talked about sacking of Neil Warnock we decided to take a look at how managers have been performing based on the total wage bill of their clubs. Many people have viewed this as a seemingly fair way of analysing how a manager is doing compared with the strength of his playing squad. A leveller between managers if you like.

Fig 1 - A table showing the final league positions of the clubs competing in the 2010/2011 Premiership season, combined with their respective wage budgets compared with every team.

Based on the above table (click to enlarge) we can see that from the 2010/11 season Blackpool and West Brom performed well above expectations based on wage bill figures taken from May 2011. Despite this, Blackpool still got relegated on the last day of the season. So does this prove that without money you cannot succeed?

Luckily for the smaller clubs we don't think so as West Brom proved last season and have continued to do this season. Finishing 11th last season they did far better then many expected, having the 2nd lowest wage bill in the league. Wolves, Wigan, Stoke and Bolton also performed better than their wage bills would suggest.

Chelsea prop up the table, despite finishing second in the league as Carlo Ancelotti got the sack at the end of the season. This statistic is slightly misleading though as their total wage bill of 174m meant that even had they won all 38 games they would have only scored 0.65. So it is important to note a sides final league position combined with the points/wage score. Clearly Blackpool would not have considered the season a success owing to their relegation. Equally Chelsea should really be winning the league given that the wage bill was some 40m higher than anybody else.

Many often consider David Moyes, at Everton, to be the best 'pound for pound' manager in the league, but we would perhaps argue not based on last season and this season so far. Finishing 7th last season and having the 9th biggest wage budget, they performed close to expectations. The 'pound for pound' accolade would go to Roy Hodgson or Mark Hughes from last season. Hodgson guiding West Brom to safety and Hughes taking Fulham to 8th. Interestingly Hughes has just been appointed QPR boss and we expect this to be a solid appointment. He did well on a small budget at Blackburn and again at Fulham as highlighted. Whilst his period as Man City boss didn't go quite as planned he still made some solid purchases, Vincent Kompany most notably. We expect Hughes to do well again at QPR.

West Ham massively under achieved last season and ended up getting relegated. The management of Avram Grant be criticised for this as he had a host of highly paid players but still finished bottom of the league. Sam Allardyce has had an excellent start in trying to get West Ham back to the Premiership, proving that West Ham should have stayed up with their resources. Aston Villa and Liverpool were the other biggest underachievers based on this table, but their seasons were disrupted by managerial changes.

What does that teach us? Maybe nothing concrete but we certainly found it interesting. Our tip? QPR to be the best of the promoted teams at around 4/1.

WA