Of the bottom 11 teams (positions 11 - 20) in the Prem League, six teams have changed their managers and five haven't. 10th Swansea - yes 11th West Ham - no 12th Aston Villa - no 13th Hull - no 14th Stoke - no 15th Crystal Palace - yes 16th Norwich - no 17th West Brom - yes 18th Sunderland - yes 19th Cardiff - yes 20th Fulham - yes Has the change of manager made any difference to their team's performance? It might be argued that it has made little difference to Fulham, Cardiff and West Brom but both Sunderland and Crystal Palace seem to have benefited from a change. The sacking of Laudrup at Swansea doen't seem to be on the grounds of performance and league position. Of the bottom 6, only Norwich have not replaced their manager and it might be argued that it might not make any difference if they did? IMO both Fulham and Cardiff look like they will drop down as the have both replaced their manager and don't seem to be improving.
Strange combination really. Fulham, Palace and Sunderland had to change because Jol, Holloway and Di Canio were losing it totally. Cardiff, West Brom and Stoke were for 'other' reasons and made little sense in footballing terms. Laudrup and Swansea is a personal falling out and again little about football. I don't believe we would benefit from a change, West Ham have done well by staying put with Allardyce and holding their nerve, we should do the same.
There's a reason why people think that switching managers causes an upturn in a team's fortunes - it's called regression to the mean. Any team with players performing far away from their expected level of performance (either exceptionally good or bad) will regress towards their expected level. A team with good players going through a bad spell will usually return to form sooner rather than later. Generally, a team fires the manager when they are going through a period of underachievement. As such, a new boss comes in and reaps the rewards of the team's inevitable upturn in performance. The new boss is lauded as the catalyst for the turnaround, and the fallacy is repeated so often in the media that people who should know better believe it. People want a causal explanation. HE WAS RESPONSIBLE sounds better than IT WAS REGRESSION TO THE MEAN. Sure, I have simplified matters a bit. After all, a manager may persist with a formation that does not complement the personnel etc. Poor managers get lucky, and good managers get unlucky. However, in the recent cases of Steve Clarke and Malky Mackay - two managers who had achieved great things given their clubs' expectations - did not just 'lose it'. They suffered from the laws of regression. Changing managers and causing upheaval was terrible, reactionary meddling from the owners/chairmen, and both teams deserve to go down because of it Hopefully Norwich heed the warning. Firing Hughton now will be a mistake - even if they stay up! In all probability, Hooper and RvW will find a touch of form, and a couple of tactical tweaks will see Norwich regress towards their slightly-above-relegation-zone level.
it's very difficult to analyse this because the points totally is so tight between the bottom half; hard to say if makes much difference, except in the case of palace and sunderland as pointed out because they have improved from being on the verge of being cast adrift.
This ^. I got slated a couple of months ago on here for making exactly this point. Maybe my fellow Norwich board members will take it more seriously coming from someone else!
