The manager is the football version of the Aztecan human sacrifice, suggests the Financial Times today. Median tenure for managers in England’s top division has dropped from 1,233 days in the 1970s to 497 days in the past two decades.
The manager is the football version of the Aztecan human sacrifice, suggests the Financial Times today. Median tenure for managers in England’s top division has dropped from 1,233 days in the 1970s to 497 days in the past two decades.
In a media intense environment the manager acts as a shield for the owners and the players, neither of whom speak much to the media, but may be just as culpable for any failures. At Manchester Uited the Glazers don’t want the media to focus on the £500m plus they have taken out of United since their £790m leveraged buyout in 2005. As the Pink ‘Un comments, ‘United’s biggest problem is not Moyes. It is money.’
Moyes inherited structuiral problems at United. Sir Alex Ferguson focused less on rebuilding, at which he had displayed so much skill in the past, in his last few years at the club. Whoever followed Sir Alex had a hard act to follow and the same challenges will face the successor to Moyes.
Stefan Szymanski, football economics guru at the University of Michigan, argues that it is players’ wages that bring success. In the English and Italian top divisions, the correlation between wage bill and league position is about 90 per cent.
Professor Szymanski says that about 10 per cent of managers consistently overachieve in relation to their wage bills. Sir Alex was the UK’s foremost over achiever, but Moyes was among the elite 10 per cent in his years at Everton.
The Financial Times argues that market logic suggests that United’s natural position is in third place, behind Chelsea and Manchester City. Of course, market logic never determines everything in football as Liverpool’s success this season this shows. Third place may be a big ask for United in the next year or two as the club goes into recovery mode.