Hitting the panic button
The football season is only a few matches old and yet some fans are hitting the panic button already. Hot favourites for the championship Leicester City have already lost two games at home. Not the form of a championship winning team! Teams at the top of the table rarely lose home games, let alone two in a row. Could Sven be on his way out again?
I recently did some work on managerial changes and their impact on teams. On average, in the top two leagues in England, teams only gained just over one league place after sacking their manager. You could argue that they may have lost places if they didn’t sack, but it seems the biggest negative impact is when a popular manager leaves. The biggest positive impact is when an unpopular manager leaves. Outside of that it has a negligible effect. I guess this can be explained by the fact that teams have inherent skill that just does or doesn’t blossom given the ‘right’ manager. The other thing I noticed is that sacking a manager has more effect at the start of the season.
So, there are a few hints as to when to back or lay a team for promotion or relegation. Given the common merry go round, I think you will have a few chances to try your hand at this. In the four years I went into real depth there were an average of 24 changes a year across the top two leagues!
Category: Football trading strategies
