The Price of Success

[PaulTheVillan]

Link

[German James]

What’s required is a realistic set of expectations going in to the upcoming season (perhaps a 7th or 8th place finish), and a commitment to steady revenue growth to move the club up the table over time; perhaps by buying more shrewdly than their rivals and developing more of their own talent. Anything else will result in continued unrealistic expectations, management and player turnover, and ultimately a failure to realize the club’s and the supporters’ goals.

Hard to fault this, in my opinion. Buying more shrewdly has got to be the key.

[adrenachrome]

Seems to be largely in line with the Villadawg Theorem.

I wonder though, how you can quantify "name recognition" and note with interest that the Tom Hanks factor has not been incorporated into this part of the analysis.

[cdward]

F**k me, that's ten minutes of my life wasted reading that.

I always find that statistics are hard to swallow and impossible to digest.  The only one I can ever remember is that if all the people who go to sleep in church were laid end to end they would be a lot more comfortable.  ~Mrs. Robert A. Taft

[Rico]

Interesting about "name recognition". I went to thẹ Copa America in Ecuador in 1993, and met up with quite a few fellow English fans from various clubs. Now I know 1993 was quite some time ago, but we got talking to a Columbian journalist who was an ex international.(can't remember his name now). Interestingly he knew of thẹ likes of Liverpool and Man utd, and also knew that Aston Villa had been European champions, but had never even heard of Chelsea (there were a handful of Chelsea there). I guess it's a case of wasted opportunities, there was no problem with name recognition then.

[German James]

Perhaps Genting will raise our profile in Asia...

[Diablo]

Really interesting read especially
"O’Neill did just about as good as anyone could have asked of him, and the only man to do better with such meagre transfer expenditures is Arsene Wenger at Arsenal".

[Villa'Zawg]

I think I can hear the squeals of some poster's sacred cows being slaughtered.

[Dante Lavelli]

An interesting article, although I note that MON took over an aging, poor quality squad whereas Houllier was seen to have failed because he didn't match MON's league position. This ignore the fact that Houllier was trying to change the team's way of playing. It also does not consider (in the text) the injuries Houllier's squad experienced although that could be inferred from the standard deviation stats. Although the writer claims this is due to Bent joining the club.

Ultimately the conclusion seems good though. We clearly cannot afford the £200+ million to buy our way to the chimps league but slow and steady investment could get us close.

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

Shouldnt the total wage bill for the squad be factored in at least as much as amounts paid out in transfer fees ? I would guess MON would not come out quite so well then.

[Bottom Right 89]

Brilliant a Masters thesis to conclude we're not fashionable, yawn.

I partcularly liked the line "and developing more of their own talent" - no shit!

[dave.woodhall]

I think I can hear the squeals of some poster's sacred cows being slaughtered.

That's funny, because all I can see is a writer nobody's ever heard of on a website nobody's ever heard of. Definitive proof, it ain't.

[KevinGage]

It's brilliant, except for two things.

The words and the stats.

[TheSandman]

Shouldnt the total wage bill for the squad be factored in at least as much as amounts paid out in transfer fees ? I would guess MON would not come out quite so well then.

That was what I was thinking. We had the sixth highest wagebill in the league with the most recent figures available. Ergo sixth was generally what one was to expect using that measure. Indeed if our wagebill is matched to our spend you have to wonder why we were paying high wages to players brought on such relative meagre fees. What about youth players as well? Surely if you develop some good young players who get into the first team that should be accounted for which a simple measurement of transfer spending does not.

There comes a point that when you have the sixth highest wage bill but have an income below that rank then that has to change. Some people cannot accept that. Even ignoring alarmist speculation about this damaging the financial viability of the club you still have the new regulations that are coming into force. There is no point trying to qualify for Europe when you have rules that will prevent you from gaining entry in Europe if your wage bill is viewed as unsustainable for your turnover. People may argue that the commercial income does not pull its weight yet they probably lauded the club for the Acorns deal that is a reason for that.

At the end of the day I don't think anyone really denies that MoN did a decent job. The fact is that at every club the supporters will pick faults with the manager. The club they support is the one they know after all. Every manager will make decisions that the fans question as managers are human. If they play 4-4-2 the messageboards will be filled with posts demanding a switch to 4-5-1 and vice versa. These flaws are perceived as what holds a club back. The problem is that every manager has them. If every manager was perfect every club would do better. But despite what some may think no manager is perfect. Some are better than others for sure but when a manager is at your club you think they are worse than they are. So there. I didn't need any mathematical formulas or incomprehensible stats to tell you that.

Even looking aside from that there is a massive error with that article and these formulas. They are a fools errand. Football is not scientific. It involves people, dependent and independent variables that are so numerous that they are almost impossible to cover completely. You can measure passes, shots, goals, wages but you cannot measure motivation of players or the tens of other abstract concepts that are involved in a game. You can dominate possession and have a million shots but you can still lose a game in spite of this by an own goal.

   

[pauliewalnuts]

The only thing that could render football more boring than an O'Neill team - lots of statistics about an O'Neill team.