Pod interview with Tony Khan

[toshes mate]

The irony is that had he been an imcompetent (non son of owner ) director of football, that in my view would have been alot worse. The question is then would that person have got so much negative attention.

Well Mike "rigor mortis" Rigg brought in Jokanovic and most of our best players from the promotion season (Cairney, Fredericks, Ream and arguably McDonald were Rigg's) on a fraction of the budget Tony Khan had, yet he got, and continues to get, plenty of "negative attention"

I don't think Rigg did bring in Jokanovic. Unless I am mistaken, this post is based on a lot of assumptions you don't know as fact. Even so, you listed some positive signings from Rigg but there were a whole load of negatives as well. Before TK took over transfers we nearly went down 2 season in a row. TK come in and we challenged for promotion

It's quite funny that, just like a stats system, when an awful lot of change happens at much the same time, posters will conveniently and arbitrarily select one item over and above all the others to make their point.  It is just like a stats system that begs your focus on one item that you love to inspect when it is flagged because it is your baby, when another stat not your baby, is a more glaring and unflagged stat that is screaming for your undivided attention.  TK and his system haven't proven more capable of putting us where we would like to be - if they got us promotion then they also got us demotion - than what went before and to pretend otherwise is the height of foolishness.  If TK's system is better than what other clubs are doing then let us have some proof of that.

[colinwhite]

Reasoned argument against TK is one thing ,but blaming him for everything is just stupid . And there has been a fair bit of that going on. Rigg signed cairney. The rest Im not sure about ,but think Macdonald was signed was signed by TK. he was a long term target as have many other players signed by whoever. Its never down to one person.
As far as the Khans are concerned ,can we reall y have it both ways ? If we go up next year it will still be TK had nothing to do with it ,and it was ok because of other people in the club and because his dads got a lot of money. We reached the play offs and gained promotion under his watch. We didnt stay up this time ,but if we do next time will people conitinue to slag -off TK if we go up next season ? If he hadnt spent 100 mill on players the criticism of TK would have been even greater. We like most other teams coming up to the PL didnt get it right , but lets hope we do next time. At least we had a go !!

[Arthur]

Do we consistently perform poorly compared to most of our peer clubs? Yes

I recognise that you are not claiming that this is anything more than a rough picture, but does your research even lend itself to your answering your question above?

Look at Preston, for instance. 38 points for every million spent?
What this figure also implies - wrongly, of course - is that, had Preston spent nothing at all, they would have had no points at all.

To generate an accurate points-per-million figure, you would need a piece of data that doesn't exist: specifically, the number of points that Preston would have got had they spent nothing at all.

I see what you are trying to say but it is true of any set of figures. 
There would be a hyphen or an infinity symbol in the column since no money was spent.
They are just awkward cases but do not detract from the point being made. 

I agree, but would go further and say that the points-per-million figure neither adds to nor detracts from the point being made because it has been calculated with insufficient information.

Had Preston (to stick with my earlier example) not spent anything at all that season, they would still have gained points. To help me, I shall pluck a number out of the air: 65 points. It is only from knowing both totals - 65 (£0M spend) and 73 (£2M spend) - that a meaningful points-per-million figure can be arrived it. In this case, of course, it would be 4 points-per-million-spent.

And even if we knew this much, it couldn't possibly be regarded as a categorical measure of competency. After all, based on the 4 points-per-million-spent figure, had Preston, like us that season, spent £17M, they should have accrued 133 points. Clearly, an unrealistic expectation. No one has to be either a football or a mathematical expert to see that there is a law of diminishing returns typically associated with expenditure and extra points gained (although, having thought about it some more, it may be a bell curve of sorts).

As we cannot know how any club would have done had it spent no money at all, in my view, the points-per-million figure is so speculative as to invalidate it.

[toshes mate]

I agree, but would go further and say that the points-per-million figure neither adds to nor detracts from the point being made because it has been calculated with insufficient information.

Had Preston (to stick with my earlier example) not spent anything at all that season, they would still have gained points. To illustrate, I shall pluck a number out of the air: 65 points. It is only from knowing both totals - 65 (£0M spend) and 73 (£2M spend) - that a meaningful points-per-million figure can be arrived it. In this case, of course, it would be 4 points-per-million-spent.

And even if we knew this much, it couldn't possibly be regarded as a categorical measure of competency. After all, based on the 4 points-per-million-spent figure, had Preston, like us that season, spent £17M, they should have accrued 133 points. Clearly, an unrealistic expectation. No one has to be either a football or a mathematical expert to see that there is a law of diminishing returns typically associated with expenditure and extra points gained.

As we cannot know how any club would have done had it spent no money at all, in my view, the points-per-million figure is so speculative as to invalidate it.

I would have preferred to see a points per game record for each club which is more realistic since outside the PL forty six games (higher max) are played rather than thirty eight in the PL.  That gives a truer reflection of the outcomes on a game by game basis, and deals with your valuable comment about measuring like for like which the table doesn't entirely achieve.  I'd also feel that a three season picture of total spend as required by FFP would also reflect circumstances of spending more accurately than any one season or single item of the spend.  Needless to say, however, you don't always get value for what you spend in transfers and I do believe TK's system is supposed to change all that once and for all.

[Penfold]

Having read (painfully) these past 9 pages I've learned many things.
TK must have inspected Mawson's knee himself.
Most of us were happy when Seri was signed because Barca wanted him, don't ya know but his failure to impress was TK's fault.
TK can't take credit for Mitro, Odoi, Chambers, Bryan, Ayite, Babel or Johansen but is responsible for Noratveit, Fonte, Fosu-Mensah, Christi, Anguissa and Schurrle.

He IS responsible for all of these. He is in charge of the recruitment team and they pretty much failed. However, the medical team and the scouting department share the responsibility.

"Hey boss, I checked that knee and Mawson will be back at full strength in six weeks". "Hey boss, this kid Seri is a natural". "Anguissa has more potential than anyone in the world." "Noratveit will plug that defensive hole we have." yada yada yada

What I've really learned is that scapegoating is the real Fulham sport. Behind the ball we had Ali-Mac, Khan senior and now Khan junior. With the ball we have an endless list. Zamora, Baird, Ream, etc.

Anyway, automatic promotion this coming season. Parker will be a successful manager and Anguissa will come good. You heard it here first!

I love this Barca wanted him. If they'd really wanted him, they'd have got him. Yes they showed interest but never followed it up. Same with Chelsea.

Is sarcasm  beyond you?

I love it. Problem these days is I'm not always sure who is being sarcastic. A couple of people I was chatting with last season nearly went blue in the face insisting that they honestly believed we'd beaten Chelsea to Seri's signature.

Hope you're not sweating your nuts off over there as we are here.

[mrmicawbers]

Just listed in to the full Pod Cast which I found very interesting, He comes across very well and obviously has Fulham in his heart.Seems to me he takes all the flack for all the negative things but very little credit for all things positive. I like him.

[Statto]

in my view, the points-per-million figure is so speculative as to invalidate it.

In several posts I've made it clear that I'm not holding it out as a perfect analysis. However to view it as totally invalidated by those imperfections is effectively to say there isn't any correlation between the transfer funds a DoF has at his disposal in the summer, and what his team can be reasonably expected to achieve the following season. To deny any correlation whatsoever between those two things is frankly absurd.

In any case I'll do a 3-yr analysis soon and put the matter to bed.

[Statto]

I don't think Rigg did bring in Jokanovic. Unless I am mistaken, this post is based on a lot of assumptions you don't know as fact.

Think what you like. There was lots of stuff put out by the club at the time saying Rigg was leading the search, including a little video IIRC where he first coined the "head coach" title that Jokanovic was ultimately given. Indeed, the main reason Mike Rigg got so much stick from fans was because we were managerless for so long whilst he was perceived to be undertaking that search.

Not sure what else in there is "assumptions"... Are you disputing that we signed Cairney in summer 2015, for example?

[Statto]

To answer some of the queries above, here's a table of the amount spent by each  club in the bottom half of the PL, along with the ratio between that spending and the points they achieved in 18/19... but this time the spending is OVER 3 YEARS from 2016 to 2019 and NET SPENDING (ie deducting sales).

The figures also disregard sales >£5m of players acquired before the 3 yr period, eg, Mitroglou, Van Dijk, Wijnaldum, Sissoko   

You'll see that even over 3 yrs, we've still spent more than Burnley, Newcastle and Watford and a similar amount to Palace, Bournemouth and Brighton





Here's the net spending broken down...

[toshes mate]

Well done Statto, I think you have just proven that it isn't the amount you spend it is the performance of the team that justifies the spend.  TK needs to do another podcast, explain to all his listeners why his system didn't bring that to fruition and whether or not his system was at fault.  (I am being deliberately provocative but I'd love to hear him try to explain it away, with a thoroughly decent interviewer of course.)

[Nero]

Well done Statto, I think you have just proven that it isn't the amount you spend it is the performance of the team that justifies the spend.  TK needs to do another podcast, explain to all his listeners why his system didn't bring that to fruition and whether or not his system was at fault.  (I am being deliberately provocative but I'd love to hear him try to explain it away, with a thoroughly decent interviewer of course.)

think he explained it when he said the previous manager didnt go to the scouting meetings, how he meant to know what type of player the manager wants and how it will fit into the manager's system. He brought purely on stats and info from the scouts, The the previous manager doesn't say yes he's a good player but has not the type i need i don't need another creative forward i need a deep lying playmaker. It doesnt mean he brought bad players just prehaps the wrong type as the manager didnt brother to have an input

[Arthur]

in my view, the points-per-million figure is so speculative as to invalidate it.

In several posts I've made it clear that I'm not holding it out as a perfect analysis.

... And the opening line of my first contribution to this thread (page 11) acknowledges this. I'm sure you wouldn't expect me to repeat it every time I post.

However to view it as totally invalidated by those imperfections is effectively to say there isn't any correlation between the transfer funds a DoF has at his disposal in the summer, and what his team can be reasonably expected to achieve the following season.

I don't accept this. I do, however, think that to the 'points divided by expenditure' calculation has too many potential flaws to be taken seriously - foremost among them, the fact that it is based on a premise that could not be further from the truth: that a club that spends nothing will get zero points.

Had you based your tables on the points difference from the season before, it would have more validity. Without this adjustment, the 2016-17 table, for instance, shows the Derby DoF having a higher points-per-million figure than Tony Khan. Would anyone, however, consider that The Rams had done better than our man if they knew that Derby had spent £15.5 million pounds to see their points total fall by 11 points from the previous season's, while Tony's investment - £23 million - saw our points tally increase by 29?

I want to be clear that I'm not trying to prove or disprove that Khan is a poor DoF. My interest is in whether he is being judged fairly. If you think those particular tables count for something worthwhile - great. I don't. But I am grateful for your research; it has given me something to think about.

[Statto]

However to view it as totally invalidated by those imperfections is effectively to say there isn't any correlation between the transfer funds a DoF has at his disposal in the summer, and what his team can be reasonably expected to achieve the following season.

I don't accept this. 

You don't need to accept it. It's not an opinion, just an expression of logic.

it is based on a premise that could not be further from the truth: that a club that spends nothing will get zero points.

For the sake of argument, let's say instead of using the actual number of points scored by each club, I'd put the difference between their actual score and an arbitrary benchmark, eg, 50 pts. Then to use your previous example, instead of showing Preston scoring 73 pts, it would show them scoring 23 pts above the benchmark, and imply that had they spent nothing, they'd have got zero points above the benchmark, ie, 50 pts.

In that case, the table would show substantially the same rankings, but without implying the "premise" that bothers you.

In other words, it wouldn't alter the result the table is intended to show, which is the relationship between the amount each team spent that year, and the success they achieved in the league (relative to each other).

The problem here is you've taken the table as intended to show something else - specifically, the number of points each team would have got had they not spent anything. I agree with you it doesn't show that. Because it's not intended to. I apologise for not making that clearer in the initial post.

Had you based your tables on the points difference from the season before, it would have more validity.

This is an interesting idea but gives rise to its own problems, and in any case may not yield hugely different results.

For example, for the 16/17 season, it wouldn't be fair to use the preceding season's tally as Fulham's benchmark, given it would have been skewed unusually low by, among other things, the fact we had 4 managers that season (Symons, Grant, Gray then Jokanovic) and were in general disarray.

For the 17/18 season, I suspect our position in the results would be substantially the same.

For the 18/19 season, it would be hard to include in the results both clubs that had been in the PL the preceding season, and the newly-promoted who were in the Championship the preceding season. Among the newly-promoted clubs, it's clear without actually carrying out the exercise, that even allowing for the fact we scored 2-11 pts less than Cardiff and Wolves, we'd still be bottom of that trio in the results. 

[Arthur]

However to view it as totally invalidated by those imperfections is effectively to say there isn't any correlation between the transfer funds a DoF has at his disposal in the summer, and what his team can be reasonably expected to achieve the following season.

I don't accept this. 

You don't need to accept it. It's not an opinion, just an expression of simple logic.

I think yours is an opinion. Yes, it's logical to think that there should be a correlation between transfer spending and how well a team performs; it doesn't follow from this, in my opinion, that any and every formula that links the two is credible. I am happy to differ with you.

it is based on a premise that could not be further from the truth: that a club that spends nothing will get zero points.

For the sake of argument, let's say instead of using the actual number of points scored by each club, I'd put the difference between their actual score and an arbitrary benchmark, eg, 50 pts. Then to use your previous example, instead of showing Preston scoring 73 pts, it would show them scoring 23 pts above the benchmark, and imply that had they spent nothing, they'd have got zero points above the benchmark, ie, 50 pts.

In that case, the table would show exactly the same results - each team in the same position, with Preston still at the top, but without implying the "premise" that bothers you.

I can see the point you're making: that though the actual points-per-million figure may be inaccurate, the order of the teams in your tables is correct.

How likely, then, is it that we would have got more than 88 points were the DoF at Preston to have been working for us and spent £17M? Because this is the conclusion to draw, is it not? That Preston had the best DoF of the top seven clubs that season: ergo, had he been at any of the other six, each would have fared even better. Really? Can spending £2M pounds, however successfully, be evidence enough to say that he would have used the rather larger transfer kitties of ourselves and Wolves to gain even more points? Or better Cardiff's 90 with an outlay of £11M? I don't see it - which is why I would disregard the table. If you can show me otherwise, I would be happy to consider it.

As an aside, I shall respond to your suggestion that the premise I use, which - even if you disagree about the extent to which it distorts the points-per-million calculation - is a fact of the way in which the formula works, 'bothers' me. It's a subtle yet deliberate attempt at a put down; it's trying to imply that I've become fixated; that my reasoning has been impaired. Please don't presume I'm trying to come across as 'holier-than-thou'; doubtless, I've made unfair aspersions myself in the past. But can we agree not to resort to such 'tactics'? Thank you.

Had you based your tables on the points difference from the season before, it would have more validity.

This is an interesting idea but gives rise to its own problems, and in any case may not yield hugely different results.

For example, for the 16/17 season, it wouldn't be fair to use the preceding season's tally as Fulham's benchmark, given it would have been skewed unusually low by, among other things, the fact we had 4 managers that season (Symons, Grant, Gray then Jokanovic) and were in general disarray.

To my mind, this is superior to using an arbitrary number of points as a benchmark. Even if our general disarray had cost us 20 points that season, using your benchmark, the Derby DoF who spent £15M, only to to end the season with 11 points fewer, would still be deemed more successful than T.K. - whose spending would have gained us 9 points. A formula which can throw up such an anomaly surely has to have a big question mark against it.

[toshes mate]

Well done Statto, I think you have just proven that it isn't the amount you spend it is the performance of the team that justifies the spend.  TK needs to do another podcast, explain to all his listeners why his system didn't bring that to fruition and whether or not his system was at fault.  (I am being deliberately provocative but I'd love to hear him try to explain it away, with a thoroughly decent interviewer of course.)

think he explained it when he said the previous manager didnt go to the scouting meetings, how he meant to know what type of player the manager wants and how it will fit into the manager's system. He brought purely on stats and info from the scouts, The the previous manager doesn't say yes he's a good player but has not the type i need i don't need another creative forward i need a deep lying playmaker. It doesnt mean he brought bad players just prehaps the wrong type as the manager didnt brother to have an input

Seems plausible, Nero, but I think you know it is BS.  In the podcast TK says 'I think I had a good relationship with SJ' and for two seasons SJ's absence from those sessions gave us a near miss and then promotion.  Only one season gave us terrible outcome.  As long as SJ had been given time then he would have turned TK's **** up around a third time.  It may have kept us up; it may not have done. TK's BS explains nothing.

[Nero]

Well done Statto, I think you have just proven that it isn't the amount you spend it is the performance of the team that justifies the spend.  TK needs to do another podcast, explain to all his listeners why his system didn't bring that to fruition and whether or not his system was at fault.  (I am being deliberately provocative but I'd love to hear him try to explain it away, with a thoroughly decent interviewer of course.)

think he explained it when he said the previous manager didnt go to the scouting meetings, how he meant to know what type of player the manager wants and how it will fit into the manager's system. He brought purely on stats and info from the scouts, The the previous manager doesn't say yes he's a good player but has not the type i need i don't need another creative forward i need a deep lying playmaker. It doesnt mean he brought bad players just prehaps the wrong type as the manager didnt brother to have an input

Seems plausible, Nero, but I think you know it is BS.  In the podcast TK says 'I think I had a good relationship with SJ' and for two seasons SJ's absence from those sessions gave us a near miss and then promotion.  Only one season gave us terrible outcome.  As long as SJ had been given time then he would have turned TK's **** up around a third time.  It may have kept us up; it may not have done. TK's BS explains nothing.

or perhaps SJ is a good championship manager but cant cut it in the premier league like Warnock, he did look like he was going to turn it around against Liverpool but it was too little to late and the performance against Huddersfield was dire.  You end up by saying the players he signed where good players after coaching but this goes back to the original point of if the manager turned up for the scouting meetings perhaps other players would have been signed and fitted into the manager's system quicker and he might have kept his job, we will never know. But this season we know Scotty is going to the meeting so let see who we sign.

Last year TK shouldn't have spent a penny and would have probably got less stick

[toshes mate]

Well done Statto, I think you have just proven that it isn't the amount you spend it is the performance of the team that justifies the spend.  TK needs to do another podcast, explain to all his listeners why his system didn't bring that to fruition and whether or not his system was at fault.  (I am being deliberately provocative but I'd love to hear him try to explain it away, with a thoroughly decent interviewer of course.)

think he explained it when he said the previous manager didnt go to the scouting meetings, how he meant to know what type of player the manager wants and how it will fit into the manager's system. He brought purely on stats and info from the scouts, The the previous manager doesn't say yes he's a good player but has not the type i need i don't need another creative forward i need a deep lying playmaker. It doesnt mean he brought bad players just prehaps the wrong type as the manager didnt brother to have an input

Seems plausible, Nero, but I think you know it is BS.  In the podcast TK says 'I think I had a good relationship with SJ' and for two seasons SJ's absence from those sessions gave us a near miss and then promotion.  Only one season gave us terrible outcome.  As long as SJ had been given time then he would have turned TK's **** up around a third time.  It may have kept us up; it may not have done. TK's BS explains nothing.

or perhaps SJ is a good championship manager but cant cut it in the premier league like Warnock, he did look like he was going to turn it around against Liverpool but it was too little to late and the performance against Huddersfield was dire.  You end up by saying the players he signed where good players after coaching but this goes back to the original point of if the manager turned up for the scouting meetings perhaps other players would have been signed and fitted into the manager's system quicker and he might have kept his job, we will never know. But this season we know Scotty is going to the meeting so let see who we sign.

Last year TK shouldn't have spent a penny and would have probably got less stick

I haven't implied your highlighted comment at all.  I have, all along, said that it is the team that works because of the partnerships created within that team.  That is two things happening - players learning how to live with their partners and the team having a philosophy that has been coached into them.  That they are good players should be the norm for what recruiter would knowingly employ a bad player?  I have simply pointed to the illogical conclusion you draw that it was the coach's absence that caused the problem when, in factual evidence, Jokanovic proved at Anfield that he could do something with what he had been given.  The fact he was already toast is the Khans overriding problem as I have already stated often enough.  The Khans just do not know when to get involved and when to back off, and that isn't just in relation to Jokanovic.  If just twenty five percent of SJ's magic dust has landed on SP then we could have a decent season but I fear it is going to need quite a bit more dust than that.  But we shall see.

[Statto]

To my mind, this is superior to using an arbitrary number of points as a benchmark. Even if our general disarray had cost us 20 points that season, using your benchmark, the Derby DoF who spent £15M, only to to end the season with 11 points fewer, would still be deemed more successful than T.K. - whose spending would have gained us 9 points. A formula which can throw up such an anomaly surely has to have a big question mark against it.

Here are the same tables using your approach. As I said, it's not practicable to compare teams who were in different divisions with this approach, so they've been removed. FWIW, had our 4-manager-disarray in 14/15 cost us 20 pts (or anything above 12 pts) we'd be a place lower in the first table. 

How likely, then, is it that we would have got more than 88 points were the DoF at Preston to have been working for us and spent £17M? Because this is the conclusion to draw, is it not? That Preston had the best DoF of the top seven clubs that season: ergo, had he been at any of the other six, each would have fared even better. Really? Can spending £2M pounds, however successfully, be evidence enough to say that he would have used the rather larger transfer kitties of ourselves and Wolves to gain even more points? Or better Cardiff's 90 with an outlay of £11M?

Again, this seems to be a denial of the correlation between the amount a club spends and how well it's expected to perform. There are now 3 analyses comparing these things (and FWIW, IMO the most accurate and comprehensive is the 3-yr analysis above, which we haven't discussed) and they all indicate that TK generally achieves proportionately a lot less than his peers with the money he spends. I accept that other factors affect the accuracy of these analyses (including FWIW the law of diminishing returns in this context, which you mentioned) but nonetheless, cannot see how, logically, you can dismiss them *absolutely* without also rejecting that there's correlation between the amount a club spends and how well it's expected to perform. As I've already said, I think it frankly absurd to reject that correlation,

So yes, for the avoidance of doubt, I'm most definitely inferring that given their better (or in some cases, proportionately better) results from smaller budgets, other clubs' DoFs would have done better than TK with our transfer kitty.

[Nero]

So does it mean if we spent 412m we would have won the league?

Anyone else find it funny that we are using stats to try and prove stats used by TK dont work

[I Ronic]

I think we've reached the conclusion of the argument as to whether Tony Khan's stat based system doesn't work by using stats to prove his stats don't work.
Before TK we would buy a player based on scouting. Then the club would have to work out whether we could afford the fee and his wages. Then a medical to ascertain his fitness (didn't we reject a forward from Villa due to a weak knee?) Both a form of stats I'd argue.
We're just going round in circles. Neither camp will persuade the other their thinking is skewed.
Let's have a vote and let the stat decide :)