The new manager effect
Early this week I was listening to the interview with Nottingham Forest manager Steve McClaren after watching his team get thumped 5-1. It was a depressing experience. Forest started the season at a good price for promotion but have since looked like a team trying to avoid relegation. McClaren seemed clueless to give a clear example of how he will turn their fortunes around. Should Forest sack him?
Another area of research I have done in the past is based around the new manager effect. I’ve researched not only what happens but why. Here is the what.
On the sample I looked at, sacking a manager generally lifted league positions on average by 1.17 places in a 20-24 field league. So there you go, sack your manager now! But more interesting was some of the detail in the averages.
If your club is right at the bottom or top of the league, then a sacking doesn’t seem to have as much effect as elsewhere on the league table. But the most predominant factor appeared to be the ‘popularity’ of the manager. If you sack a ‘popular’ manager, your form will decline no matter who you bring in. If you sack an ‘unpopular’ manager then your form improves whoever you bring in. Clubs that made a ‘popular’ appointment gained an average of six league places and those that didn’t fell on average. That inevitably lead me to ask why you see this effect, so I worked on this with a psychologist. But that’s another story.
Of course, that doesn’t directly answer the question of whether or not McClaren is popular or unpopular, but if it’s the latter and he is sacked start backing Forest.
Category: Football trading strategies
