Soccernomics and how it applies to fulham

[GB4FFC]

Regarding the signing of younger players versus older players, it's very difficult to definitely say that doing one is better than another across the board.  It all depends on the resources available to the club, the desirability of the club to potential players, the pool of players available and how those players are valued.  The key Moneyball concept isn't that teams should follow a prescription of X, Y and Z and religiously do that, it's that a team should be doing an analysis looking for undervalued assets, then exploit that market inefficiency where possible.

To put it another way, a 20 year old is almost certainly a safer bet than a 17 year old.  That's almost impossible to dispute.  That doesn't tell us where the value is.  If 50% of 20 year olds pan out, and an average 20 year old costs 1 million, while 25% of 17 year olds turn out but an average 17 year old costs 250,000, then signing 4 17 year olds is the better way to spend 1 million pounds.  Plug in different figures and that conclusion may change.

Then factor in how good an academy is.  A top academy with the latest training techniques may be able to improve youngster outcomes by 5 or 10%.  I can't prove this but my guess is that expenditures on coaching 17 year old players increase outcomes more than expenditures on 20 year olds, simply because 17 year olds are more variable.  Also, a club that established a reputation as having an excellent academy may be able to sign younger players for a lower cost if potential signings start to view your team's academy as providing value in the form of increased future earnings because they can expect to become a better player.

A 25 year old is an even safer bet than a 20 year old. If you're Manchester City and have virtually unlimited resources, you sign all the best finished products because there's no reason to waste time on players who might become good when you can sign players who already are good.  By contrast a poor team may have no choice but to sign young, high variance players and hope they pan out because that's all they can afford.

So, I agree that a stats-based look at what types of player to sign is a good thing, and that 30+ year old players who are highly likely to decline aren't usually a great way to spend money (unless they are cheap or free... Berba may have been a reasonable risk for what we paid).  I also agree that it's smart to look at trends across the sport to see broadly where inefficiencies are.  At the same time, there are also a whole lot of team-specific variables that need to be taken into account before one can say that a particular course of action would benefit Fulham.

[eloc]

If I ask you to recommend me a restaurant in your home city and you respond that most are of low quality, then I believe you but you have been of little use.

Similarly, it's not much help to pro football owners to tell them that managers make no difference in general; that only the best ones do. It's the best ones they want to hire!

That exceptional managers alone are exceptional, while indeed believeable, is as useful as that restaurant advice. Signs that would help you to spot an exceptional manager of the future, before rival owners snapped him up -- you'd want to read that.

the resturant example for what im trying to say is this: one person who is an expert in grading restaurants is more often than not, the same quality as a large group of regular people reviewing a bunch of restaurants. its why things like yelp, or urbanspoon exist.  managers are all well and good, but if you can achieve similar success without the extra cost, why would you waste the money?

[eloc]

Regarding the signing of younger players versus older players, it's very difficult to definitely say that doing one is better than another across the board.  It all depends on the resources available to the club, the desirability of the club to potential players, the pool of players available and how those players are valued.  The key Moneyball concept isn't that teams should follow a prescription of X, Y and Z and religiously do that, it's that a team should be doing an analysis looking for undervalued assets, then exploit that market inefficiency where possible.

To put it another way, a 20 year old is almost certainly a safer bet than a 17 year old.  That's almost impossible to dispute.  That doesn't tell us where the value is.  If 50% of 20 year olds pan out, and an average 20 year old costs 1 million, while 25% of 17 year olds turn out but an average 17 year old costs 250,000, then signing 4 17 year olds is the better way to spend 1 million pounds.  Plug in different figures and that conclusion may change.

Then factor in how good an academy is.  A top academy with the latest training techniques may be able to improve youngster outcomes by 5 or 10%.  I can't prove this but my guess is that expenditures on coaching 17 year old players increase outcomes more than expenditures on 20 year olds, simply because 17 year olds are more variable.  Also, a club that established a reputation as having an excellent academy may be able to sign younger players for a lower cost if potential signings start to view your team's academy as providing value in the form of increased future earnings because they can expect to become a better player.

A 25 year old is an even safer bet than a 20 year old. If you're Manchester City and have virtually unlimited resources, you sign all the best finished products because there's no reason to waste time on players who might become good when you can sign players who already are good.  By contrast a poor team may have no choice but to sign young, high variance players and hope they pan out because that's all they can afford.

So, I agree that a stats-based look at what types of player to sign is a good thing, and that 30+ year old players who are highly likely to decline aren't usually a great way to spend money (unless they are cheap or free... Berba may have been a reasonable risk for what we paid).  I also agree that it's smart to look at trends across the sport to see broadly where inefficiencies are.  At the same time, there are also a whole lot of team-specific variables that need to be taken into account before one can say that a particular course of action would benefit Fulham.

your assuming though that the 4 17 year olds are going to pan out all the same as the 1 20 year old. young players are extremely volatile. and there are plenty of market inefficiencies left to be exploited. fulham can offer a lot to players provided they stay in the premier league. they can raid the "lesser" leagues i.e. portugal, netherlands, belgium, switzerland and the like. fulham is entirely capable of this. liverpool has taken a lot of players from outside the big 5 leagues and turned them into title contenders. chelski does this, but they tend to take the cream of the crop from the lesser teams in the big leagues.

[eloc]

What about all the other promoted clubs that used conventional managers and coaches?  If it's a numbers game as the authors' book implied, then that example of the one club in the one club is not even worthy of mention.
Nogood "no good, isit" Boyo

it worth mentioning because its the only instance of it happening in a professional league, as far as i know. it may be a fluke. but whats to say its not? the biggest predictor of a clubs success according to the book is not manager or transfer fees paid, its wages spent. on the whole, the more you pay your players the better you do. dont take that as meaning we should pay our players more and that will magically improve the club. the wages are reflective of the players quality. basically the average player who is paid 80K a week is better than the average player who is paid 40K.

[eloc]

When you say managers don't make a difference what powers are you linking to a manager?
If you're talking a baseball managers powers like Charlie Manuel when at the Phillies I'd agree. Tinkering with the line up, bull pen management, shift defense, matching right and lefties. Most knowledgeable fans could do that. The coaching is mostly skills coaching again most decent ex hitters/ pitchers could do that.

For football the Manager (in many clubs) is a combination of a baseball GM in that he selects the talent, plus he runs the training, and the bits by omission you really underplay are the man management aspect and the tactics (both planned and reactive). These are huge parts of football and light years away of bringing the 3 baseman up the line situationally to stymie a bunt or a suicide squeeze.

A good manager is worth 10 to 20pc of a season's points total (you'd have seen that if we had Jol and Felix doing a full season and comparing results) even if he had the same players...imagine what that would look like a baseball WAR stat. If you add in the influence most have on player acquisitions and exits I'd say 20 per cent to 33 per cent in the long run.

I infer that you may agree with the player acquisition/ exit impact but you, wrongly, don't link that to a manager's role. It's still a key part of most Manager's responsibilities especially in English professional football.

By 'you' I mean the book and your (supportive) representation of it.

im linking all those powers to a manager. you dont need to be an ex-player to see that messi and ronaldo are lightyears better than rodders and berba. a group of fans can figure that out. skill coaching doesnt necessarily require experience playing. wenger has done pretty well for a lad who played 56 games his whole career. being a good player doesnt mean your a good coach. its really how much you study the game, which has led to the idea that crappy players make good coaches because they spend most of their time watching football. transfers are of a similar vein. while everyone can see that our team would be better with ronaldo, i would argue that most of us fans could come up with a list of transfer targets similar to or better than, what a manager would. a manager is one person who only has 24 hours in a day. sure he has scouts. but why not utilize your entire fanbase? the cottage holds roughly 30K. thats 30K sets of eyeballs watching the game, 30K brains analyzing and processing the game around them. it seems almost foolish to ignore the vast wealth of input available.

[WayneKerrins]

You underplay the tactical side of football management by the width of the Atlantic

[eloc]

You underplay the tactical side of football management by the width of the Atlantic

Care to explain, or are you merely content with making hyperbolic riffraff?

[WayneKerrins]

You penultimate post was essentially a whole lot of nothing: it didn't really address any of the points in the post you quoted. To me it merited a succint reply.
Address the points and I'll be happy to respond to your argumentation.

[eloc]

i dont see how i did not respond appropriately to the post? he asked which attributes i ascribed to a manager, and those which i did not. he asked about tactics and i adressed them i thought, by illustrating that the fans are just as capable of watching the game as the manager, and that as an entire fanbase we are as good as, or better than an individual manager.

perhaps you are question whether or not i think that fans can or should handle in game tactics. in short, i think they can, but it would take too much effort to effectively implement it. most fans of any team watchinig any game, as a whole would be able to see general concepts and the overall momentum of a game.

[eloc]

for an example, we (we being the fans on this board and others like it) can see that fulham has a huge problem defending corners and set pieces. i would argue that is an almost universal point among fulham fans. if you implemented a fan based managerial/coaching system, then the coaches who run the training sessions for the team would take the overall inputs and figure out what the team needs to work on for the following week.

[WayneKerrins]

A kind if anarcho syndicalist approach?
Maybe we wire up all season ticket holders and we vote (real time) on corner drills, who takes free kicks and peno s and what formation change is needed at half time, plus substitutions...

A bit wacky but would be a laugh and interesting to watch and absolutely would be a notch up from most of the decisions the buffoon Jol made.

I would suggest you look at the TIFF forum because the opinions of quite a few on there make Lawrie Sanchez look like a managerial maestro.

[b+w geezer]

managers are all well and good, but if you can achieve similar success without the extra cost, why would you waste the money?

The particular suggestion that the book makes about how to manage football teams is therefore what? Don't appoint a manager, save the salary? Or is that your suggestion rather than the book's?

[TonyGilroy]

for an example, we (we being the fans on this board and others like it) can see that fulham has a huge problem defending corners and set pieces. i would argue that is an almost universal point among fulham fans. if you implemented a fan based managerial/coaching system, then the coaches who run the training sessions for the team would take the overall inputs and figure out what the team needs to work on for the following week.

Quite right - who needs training and expertise from professionals.

All that's needed is for the supporters to scream

DEFEND BETTER YOU MUPPETS..

[MJG]

for an example, we (we being the fans on this board and others like it) can see that fulham has a huge problem defending corners and set pieces. i would argue that is an almost universal point among fulham fans. if you implemented a fan based managerial/coaching system, then the coaches who run the training sessions for the team would take the overall inputs and figure out what the team needs to work on for the following week.

Some of you may remember this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MyFootballClub

'Own The Club, Pick the Team'

Was never going to be allowed by those who administrated it, Mr Will (I'm going to make money writing a book about this one day) Brooks. Or by those club people. Took the money but did not allow the fans to do what it said on the tin.

[eloc]

managers are all well and good, but if you can achieve similar success without the extra cost, why would you waste the money?

The particular suggestion that the book makes about how to manage football teams is therefore what? Don't appoint a manager, save the salary? Or is that your suggestion rather than the book's?

not appointing a manager and saving the salary is my own suggestion. we need the money, and were spending money on coaches we dont really need, nor are they a part of the club. the books point is that most managers are as effective as the fans. i would say the point of the book is that if you are going to hire a manager, find one who performs better than the average

[eloc]

for an example, we (we being the fans on this board and others like it) can see that fulham has a huge problem defending corners and set pieces. i would argue that is an almost universal point among fulham fans. if you implemented a fan based managerial/coaching system, then the coaches who run the training sessions for the team would take the overall inputs and figure out what the team needs to work on for the following week.

Some of you may remember this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MyFootballClub

'Own The Club, Pick the Team'

Was never going to be allowed by those who administrated it, Mr Will (I'm going to make money writing a book about this one day) Brooks. Or by those club people. Took the money but did not allow the fans to do what it said on the tin.

that was with a very small club (ebbsfleet) with a fanbase that was more than likely larger than  the actual fanbase of ebbsfleet(32,000) members at its peak.

[eloc]

A kind if anarcho syndicalist approach?
Maybe we wire up all season ticket holders and we vote (real time) on corner drills, who takes free kicks and peno s and what formation change is needed at half time, plus substitutions...

A bit wacky but would be a laugh and interesting to watch and absolutely would be a notch up from most of the decisions the buffoon Jol made.

I would suggest you look at the TIFF forum because the opinions of quite a few on there make Lawrie Sanchez look like a managerial maestro.

whats TIFF?
and yeah ideally thats what i would want in a perfect world.

[WayneKerrins]

A kind if anarcho syndicalist approach?
Maybe we wire up all season ticket holders and we vote (real time) on corner drills, who takes free kicks and peno s and what formation change is needed at half time, plus substitutions...

A bit wacky but would be a laugh and interesting to watch and absolutely would be a notch up from most of the decisions the buffoon Jol made.

I would suggest you look at the TIFF forum because the opinions of quite a few on there make Lawrie Sanchez look like a managerial maestro.

whats TIFF?
and yeah ideally thats what i would want in a perfect world.

Google The independent Fulham Forum or TFI fulham. Pre dates this by a decade or so. Some of us frequent both.. this board has a lower fool quotient.

[eloc]

went and checked it out. damn that place is ancient. have seen layout design like that since the late 90's.

[SadOldGit]

I heard a programme on Radio 4 a while ago, with an expert from the Office of National  Statistics.  He confirmed that they had done quite a bit of research on this topic, and found that indeed, with a tiny minority of exceptions, it really doesn't matter who picks the teams - they would have an equal chance of success.  That is not to say that coaching can't assist.  Clearly it can.