Successful players don’t always make successful managers, Sparky

by Martin McCutcheon

Mark Hughes has begun his first season at Fulham, his third club as manager. The question is: was he too successful as a player to make it as a successful manager? He scored over 150 goals for 7 clubs, winning 2 Premier League titles, 4 FA Cups, 3 League Cups and two UEFA Cup Winners Cups along the way. But can he translate this success into management?

He was primarily guided, after all, by England’s most successful manager, Alex Ferguson. Ferguson has won 11 titles with United, two Champions League titles and 5 FA Cups. He also scored over 150 goals, but won only two titles as a player. Like Fergie, Brian Clough was a prolific striker scoring 251 goals (see chart). But he won no titles as a player. He did go on to win two league titles and back to back European Cups as manager, though.

Jose Mourinho also won no titles as a player; he scored barely a handful of goals, played less than 100 matches, but has won 6 league titles in 3 countries, including 2 Champions League titles with Porto and Inter. We’ve seen this change of fortune from player to manager before: Bob Paisley won only one title as a Liverpool player, but led them to 6 League titles and 3 European Cups as a manager. A contemporary of Hughes’s playing era Ruud Gullit won the European Cup in 1989 and1990, and 6 domestic league titles, but as a manager has won only one FA Cup.

While scoring lots of goals brings mixed success, great managers didn’t always win titles as players. It does not bode well for Sparky. Nor Fulham.

An interesting tale on resale value declining as players move into the bigger leagues

UEFA's first report on the European Club Footballing Landscape provides an interesting picture on the valuation of players and their expected resale value across European leagues. If we compare the clubs' valuation of players on their balance sheets, it is not particularly surprising to find that English clubs are at the top with combined player assets of €1.24 billion with Spain coming in second at €985 million and Italy in third with €821 million. But it's interesting to then compare this to how the players' agents estimate player resale values. England again comes in top with the player resale value totaling €2.76 billion, Spain at €2.31 billion and Italy on €2.15 billion. This represents a substantial premium on the clubs' balance sheet estimate of player assets, which probably more closely reflects original transfer value.

Although there appears to be significant resale premium in the bigger leagues with English clubs expecting a profit of 123%, Spanish clubs at 135% and Italian clubs at 162%, the real profit comes in the smaller European leagues with Scotland clubs facing expected profits of 491% and Turkish clubs at 445%. In the figure below, clubs' valuation of player assets on their balance sheets is represented by the white circle with agents' player valuation the larger green circle. Although the clubs' total player assets on their balance sheets declines rapidly as we move down through the smaller leagues, the agents' valuation of players does not decline as quickly. This points to expected profit on player resale increasing as we move down through the smaller leagues.

What does this tell us? Probably an expected story. The smaller European leagues provide the training ground for the best players before moving to more well known leagues in England, Spain and Italy for significant transfer fees. But once players get to England, Spain and Italy, there is little opportunity to transfer to bigger clubs; and for English, Spanish and Italian clubs, there are little options to make a profit on players by receiving a larger transfer fee than what they paid.

English and Spanish clubs continue to dominate European football

Infostrada Sports recently released rankings for European clubs holds little surprises. Barcelona remain the top ranked club in Europe with English and Spanish clubs taking 70% of the top 10.

Looking at the top 50 provides a more equal distribution across Europe with English and Spanish clubs taking 32% of the places with 13 countries represented.

Relegation results, Nicknames and Predictability

By Martin McCutcheon

The start of a new season brings a plethora of possible predictions: who will win the league, which teams will make Europe, who will be the first manager to be sacked, and, sadly, who will go down. We all know money will help answer who will take the top prize, but is it the same at the bottom of the table? This blog tries to analyse the form of the relegation contenders from the past decade to predict who will go down this season. With this being 2010, a decade makes a nice round block of time to analyse.

We assume the “big four” taking the Champions League places is almost a foregone conclusion and the top eight will be filled in by Villa, Spurs, Everton and Man City (although we accept City’s millions might trade places with Liverpool). We'll also assume Newcastle’s 08/09 and Man City's 00/01 relegations are outliers; curiously making book-ends of the decade.

Away from those headline grabbers, we turn to the other side of the league table. Table 1 shows the teams that have swapped places each year since 2000/01.

Table 1: Results from 2000-2010

Using the results we can assign all the teams a category:

• Teams that are first timers to the Premiership, or last for just that season we call “Fresh blood”; Blackpool taking that title this season, following Burnley, Derby, Sheffield United, Watford, Crystal Palace, Leicester and Norwich before them
• Teams that survive a season and then go down, we’ll call “One-hit wonders”: Hull and Reading in recent years
• Teams that bounce back and forth are commonly referred to as “Yo-yo” clubs, having been relegated more than once in ten years. WBA, Sunderland and Birmingham will all play in the Premier League this season bearing that tag. Wolves could join them and Leicester might have made a case of being part of that clique earlier in the decade
• Now teams that have been promoted in the past five seasons and stay around for more than two years, we’ll politely call “Clingers”: Stoke, Wigan and, forgive us, West Ham
• If a team can survive for more than five seasons, but never quite break into the Top 8, we call them “Fodder”; Blackburn, Fulham and Bolton taking that role throughout the past decade. Middlesbrough, Portsmouth, Southampton, Charlton and Coventry were all once good “Fodder” stock
• And to complete the names in the table, the “Outliers” are Newcastle, Man City and Leeds

Using these categories for all 20 Premiership teams, Table 2 gives us the groups (but not necessarily the predicted finishing places!) for the 2010/11 Premiership table.

Of the 30 relegation spots over the decade, 8 have been filled by a “Yo-yo” team, 9 by a “Fresh blood” team and 5 spots have been filled by “Fodder”. On average, a “Yo-yo” team goes down each year- so that's one from Birmingham, West Brom, Sunderland or perhaps Wolves. Given their repeated experience of it, we'll go for West Brom taking that place. And the “Fresh blood” teams generally last just that year so we think Blackpool's time is limited. That leaves one remaining relegation spot.

To help answer who will fill the final spot, we’ve spotted a trend over the past decade of the fall of the mid-table "Fodder": at the start of the decade, after 34 years of top flight football, Coventry got relegated. In 2005 Southampton followed suit after 27 years, Charlton dropped in 2007, and Middlesbrough in 2009. This year Portsmouth, after a 7-year spell, finally broke down; they went broke and went down.

Using these findings, for 2010/11 we predict a “Fodder” team is going down again, and oddly all three current “Fodder” teams have been around for the same time. Fulham were European finalists last season, and Blackburn finished in the top ten. Our money is saying that after ten years, it’s time up for Bolton.

How large is Yaya Toure's salary?

A lot has been made of Yaya Toure's alleged £200k a week contract at Manchester City. But how big is it really? It is more than 7 times the average salary of a Premier League footballer and around 400 times the salary of the average worker.

Germany's counter attacking approach wins the day

Unsurprisingly, the stats don't paint a different picture of England's humiliating 4-1 loss to Germany. But Germany's tactic of hitting on the counter does come through quite strongly - and supported by their display in the quarters against Argentina. Against England, the Germans gave up possession to the tune of 44.8% to England's 55.2%, which is quite considerable in the modern game. However, they took the honours in the territorial advantage at 52.6% to England's 47.4%. And the individual stats back Germany's stronger attacking performance with Ozil and Schweinsteiger way ahead of England's triumvirate of Gerrard, Barry and Lampard on key passes and forward half passes. It highlights that focussing on possession football only gets you so far: it's what you do with it that counts.

It’s all relative: Frank Lampard stood out in a poor midfield

There was much criticism of England’s lack of creativity against USA. While Steven Gerrard’s performance was universally acclaimed, Frank Lampard received a mixed reaction. But it’s interesting when you look at the stats. Lampard recorded more passes (55) than Steven Gerrard (53), Wayne Rooney (33) or USA’s standout player Landon Donovan (39), and at a higher completion rate of 87.3%. Breaking this down further points to Lampard being a lot more involved in the game than his “creative” peers. Lampard had 4 key passes compared to Gerrard’s 1 and Rooney’s 2; and he was much busier in the final third with 19 passes at a completion rate of 84.2% than Gerrard with 16 passes at 81.25%. The Lampard-Gerrard axis in the middle of the park was highlighted once again as not working for England. But there wasn’t much of a supporting contribution from the flanks with Aaron Lennon, James Milner and Shaun Wright-Phillips combining for 0 successful crosses, 1 attempt on goal, 2 key passes, and 24 passes in the final third.

Darren Bent's game is more than just goals this season

It's not just goals this season's Darren Bent gets you: Bent is just much more involved in the game. Against Hull, he provided link up play all across the pitch for Sunderland; compare this to Spurs' game away at Hull last season and Bent's passing is hardly in evidence. If Capello is also looking for link up play in Rooney's partner, can Bent provide this as well as a goal threat?


by Guardian Chalkboards

Does James Milner offer England another option in centre midfield?

As things stand, there are unlikely to be many arguments against James Milner being included in the squad for South Africa based on his performances for Aston Villa and England. In Wednesday night’s game against Egypt, he came on in the second half to replace Steven Gerrard, and had the initial shot that led to Wright-Phillips’s goal. But does he offer something else for England? Villa originally signed Milner as winger, but in recent months he has moved inside to play in the midfield three in Villa’s 4-3-3. This has enabled Milner to influence the game much more as well as increase his goal scoring threat. Early in the season against Chelsea, Milner plays as a classic wide player and hugs the touchline (see below Chalkboard). But in the recent home game against Manchester United, Milner plays in the midfield role and is much more active across the pitch, but also picks up the ball deep inside his own half (see below Chalkboard). As witnessed in Sunday’s Carling Cup Final, Milner can take advantage of the ball carrying skills he learned as a winger to take the ball out of defence and into the opposing half.


by Guardian Chalkboards

Nobody would argue that Milner has been one of the form players in the Premier League this season. But does he offer more than wing play for England? If we look at the current occupiers of the central midfield roles for England – Frank Lampard and Gareth Barry – they play slightly different roles with Barry playing more of a holding role and Lampard getting more advanced. Both Barry and Lampard playing similar roles for their clubs – Manchester City and Chelsea respectively. In the Chelsea vs. Manchester City game at the weekend, Barry plays further back and arguably does most of his work in the City half; Lampard roams across both axes of the pitch, but gets into the box frequently as well as puts a number of crosses in from both flanks (see below Chalkboard).


 by Guardian Chalkboards

Milner’s type of play would seem better suited to Lampard’s type of role. But two things to point out. As can be seen in a losing Chelsea performance against Manchester City, Lampard is still an important influence on a game through his heavy involvement, willingness to get advanced and ability to create chances. Secondly, England play more of a 4-2-3-1 system with Lampard part of a sitting axes in front of the back four, albeit more advanced than Barry. In this type of system, Milner might be better suited to play wide right or left as part of the three: in a sense, that is why Steven Gerrard is out on the left side of midfield as that is a much more attacking role than centre midfield. Based on his performances this season for Villa, Milner’s inclusion in the squad for the World Cup appears to be a pretty good prospect; his adaptability across the midfield is an added bonus for England, but in Cappello’s current system, Milner will probably be more effective as a winger.

Who should replace Ashley Cole for England?

Ashley Cole's broken ankle puts England in the position they did not want to be in at this stage of having to find a replacement left-back. Wayne Bridge would appear to be the obvious choice having deputised for Cole for a number of years. Although experience is on Bridge's side, the question is over whether he replaces what Cole offers up for England. There are a number of other candidates being offered up with Stephen Warnock and Leighton Baines both getting mentions.

After an inauspicious start with Chelsea, Cole has really improved his defensive abilities, but it is what he also provides going forward that makes him one of the best full backs in world football. For England, Cole's attacking threat down the left-hand side is even more important with the lack of a left-sided player in midfield. Cole's threat was highlighted in Chelsea's recent home game against Arsenal; Cole got forward a number of times, hugged the touchline, and supported the attack (see below Chalkboard). Bridge, however, is not that type of full back. In Manchester City's early season win against Arsenal, Bridge did most of his passing in his own half and rarely got into the last third of the pitch (see below Chalkboard).

by Guardian Chalkboards

Do Warnock or Baines offer something else? Although they can't call on the experience of major championships, both have been solid Premier League left-backs over the last couple of seasons. But in terms of what they offer, they get forward and provide more attacking threat than Bridge. In Aston Villa's recent game with Liverpool, Warnock connected with 34 passes and gave a lot of support in the opposing half (see below Chalkboard). Baines is a more old-fashioned left-back and gives more genuine over-lapping threat by getting to the byline and supplying crosses. In Everton's win over Manchester United, Baines does most of his work in the opposing half, gets in advanced positions and puts in a series of crosses into the box (see below Chalkboard).


by Guardian Chalkboards

There is no argument over whether Baines and Warnock can compete with Bridge in terms of experience on the big stage. With Ashley Cole around, experience was a good rationale for Bridge being in the squad as cover at left-back in the major championships. But Cole's attacking threat is a significant loss down the left flank for England, particularly if they stick with a relatively narrow midfield on the left-hand side. Both Warnock and Baines provide more energy going forward, but Baines is the more attacking threat through the number of crosses he gets into the box. Fabio Cappello might be looking for a more experienced replacement, but if he wants England to be bold, he could do a lot worse than take a look at Leighton Baines.