TURNING BUDDY RYAN LOOSE ON THESE CLOWNS...:

Time to end our deluded obsession with club managers (Simon Kuper, August 7 2009, Financial Times)

The obsession with football managers is misguided. Hardly any of them make any difference to results. The institution of manager is something of a con-trick. Ferguson and Ancelotti are best understood as marketing tools.

The fact is that players’ salaries alone almost entirely determine football results. Stefan Szymanski, economics professor at Cass Business School, studied the spending of 40 English clubs between 1978 and 1997, and found that their spending on salaries explained 92 per cent of their variation in league position. The team that pays most, wins.

Only a few managers, such as Brian Clough or Bill Shankly, consistently perform better with their teams than the wage bill suggests that they should. Sometimes a manager outperforms when he is the only one in a country who possesses new knowledge. That’s why Arsene Wenger did so well in his early years at Arsenal: nobody else in England then knew as much about foreign players, or what footballers should eat. Similarly, Guus Hiddink outperformed with South Korea, Australia and Russia because he taught these teams the latest European football know-how.

However, no such knowledge gaps exist in English football any more. Everyone in the game now has access to best practice. The Premier League is like a market with almost perfect information.

...would be like that old Godzilla vs. Bambi cartoon. Just the notion that there is no knowledge would be easily exploited by any coach who could break down tape.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 7, 2009 6:42 PM