Soccernomics and How to improve Fulham

I'm new, so if this comes off as condescension , I apologize.

If you haven't read the book soccernomics, do so now. It will blow your mind.

Firstly, a brief summary of the book: MONEYBALL, BUT SOCCER.

Now, I don't know how much of these ideas Fulham have already in place, but it would seem that we tend to ignore some of the key tennets.

We overpay for older players, and we tend to focus on big name players rather than those who actually work for the team. Secondly we hold onto players far past their prime (looking at you hangeland).

As we lack the budget to compete with the big clubs, we need to play smarter. We can afford to bring in Bale and Ronaldo, but we can attempt to find people who could turn into it. We need to stop looking at players younger than 20. They have not finished developing physically, nor emotionally, and mentally. A PERFECT example of a player who was overhyped at an early age is Freddy Adu. By spending more time looking at and having players who we can see their career arc more clearly we have less risk than a player who is unpolished.

Instead of buying players(like berbatov,) or loaning players (like bent) based on their past performances, we need to start looking at players who are gaining. To put it in economic terms, you don't by stock that's dropped hoping it will come back to its previous high.

Secondly, statistically managers don't matter. Literally, we would do just as well, or better if we sent every member of the club a sheet and had them set the line up. Look at fantasy football, in both American football and football. It's not that hard to be a good coach. However, if we do get a coach, FIND ONE WHO IS GOOD. And for the love of god, not a former player. There is not correlation between the two. Heck, hire a black woman, they've got as much statistical impact as someone like Jol or Rodgers. If we higher a new manager, make it someone who has shown to have a statistical impact. There's a couple of coaches in the lower leagues who have remarkable records for terrible teams.

Finally, Khan needs to realize that this club is not a business. No sporting club ever is. Even mighty Real Madrid which is worth 3 Billion USD doesnt even register on the Financial Times 500 global list ( the lowsest is worth 19 billion USD). Also, Soccer clubs have high moral hazard. No matter what football clubs survive. For example, look at Portsmouth. They went bankrupt and into administration. They ran out of money to pay their players, and they even said that it was likely the club would be closed for good. Yet a group of fans came in and purchased the grounds, and eventually the team. No business survives like that. In 1923 the English Football league had 88 teams spread over 4 divisions. In 2007-2008 85 of these same clubs still existed. They made it through the great depression, WWII, the thatcher recession, and countless financial hardship. Now look at businesses from the same time period. Heck look at the companies that made up the DJIA in 1923 and today. who is still there? For khan to believe fulham can be run like a business is foolish.

 

I'll have to read the book, I guess. I still don't agree with your claim about managers' impacts and don't see a compelling argument above to change my mind.

You mentioned Wenger in the chat room. I'd ask if you've seen Arsenal play prior to Wenger. The styles are night and day. Now we can argue how successful the change has been, especially in the last ten years. But I'd submit that has more to do with spending in relation to those teams around them in the table, than it has to do with Wenger.

The premise in Moneyball is that you can find statistics that point out players who are effective, yet undervalued. I don't see that as much in football. I think there are most definitely players who are undervalued, but the statistical link isn't there so much.

It is an interesting topic though.

 

To use the Moneyball example, Billy Beane did work around Oakland manager Art Howe, trading away players the mgr favored so he would have to play the undervalued guys Beane brought in. But in the last two seasons, Oakland's had a manager who appreciates how to use his undre-valued personnel to win 90+ games during the long 162-game regular season. Then in the playoffs the A's lose to teams with higher payrolls -- that is, with better players, especially better pitchers.

Looking at English football, I do agree that the path to the Championship is paved with signings or loans of older players whose best days are behind them and/or who used to play for Jol somewhere else. Aston Villa did struggle with its youth movement last year, but it did stay up. As Hatter Don noted on Saturday, do we imagine the current FFC team can capture more than 15 points between now and May?

 

Maybe we overpay for our older players, I dont know, salaries dont really interest me. However, our older players have been absolutely key for Fulham over and over again - Brain McBride, Danny Murphy, Damien Duff, Zoltan Gera not to mention Haynes and Leggat during the clubs previous spell in the top flight. They were/are all older players who worked for the team and I think more than earned whatever salaries they received. I think Fulham's way of dealing with older players and their salaries has been to sign them to one year contracts which I think makes some sense.

I dont totally disagree with this but we made good money off of Chris Smalling who we signed at 18 when he had just been released from his previous club due to homesickness concerns. I thought Smalling was overhyped at the time and I still do, but the fact remains we made money off of him by shipping him out the door at 20 yrs old. We cant compete for young players whose career arc is clear and who will at the same time be more productive than our olde big name players like Berba, Parker, etc. The best we can do is get a Dembele or Altidore type player who has proven themselves in a lesser league but yet to prove themselves in the premier league.

This is nonsense. If statistics show managers dont matter then that just means a majority of the managers out there are of similar ability, use similar tactics, etc. It means only a few rise above the others which really isnt surprising when you consider they all go through the same system to get their coaching badges. I think you had it right when you said, "FIND ONE WHO IS GOOD".

 

Maybe we overpay for our older players, I dont know, salaries dont really interest me. However, our older players have been absolutely key for Fulham over and over again - Brain McBride, Danny Murphy, Damien Duff, Zoltan Gera not to mention Haynes and Leggat during the clubs previous spell in the top flight. They were/are all older players who worked for the team. I think Fulham's way of dealing with older players and their salaries has been to sign them to one year contracts which I think makes some sense.

-Its a negative return on investment. Look at duff now. His performance is not worth his salary. Im not saying that having older players is bad, but we tend to pay over the odds for players who we KNOW are declining. Its like trying to wring that last drop of water out of a towel.

I dont totally disagree with this but we made good money off of Chris Smalling who we signed at 18 when he had just been released from his previous club due to homesickness concerns. I thought Smalling was overhyped at the time and I still do, but the fact remains we made money off of him by shipping him out the door at 20 yrs old. We cant compete for young players whose career arc is clear and who will at the same time be more productive than our olde big name players like Berba, Parker, etc. The best we can do is get a Dembele or Altidore type player who has proven themselves in a lesser league but yet to prove themselves in the premier league.

Here are a few recent winners of the Golden Ball for best player at the under-seventeen World Cup: Philip Osundo of Nigeria, William de Oliveira of Brazil, Nii Lamptey of Ghana, Scottish goalkeeper James Will, and Mohammed al-Kathiri of Oman. How many of those kids are on the ballon d'or short list? or for that matter, playing top flight football?

- Smalling is one player who we have made money off of. Again the point that im trying to make is that by buying the next "messi" or next "Ronaldo" we are wasting our time, they are few and far between and the difference between players at age 16-18 and 22-26 is massive. For an example, that maybe a little out of the box, look at player ratings in fifa over the years. How many players are destined to become world stars one year, and fizzle out the next? you would find that a player who is over the age of 20ish has a fairly consistent rating, which is reflective of players in the real world.


This is nonsense. If statistics show managers dont matter then that just means a majority of the managers out there are of similar ability, use similar tactics, etc. It means only a few rise above the others which really isnt surprising when you consider they all go through the same system to get their coaching badges. I think you had it right when you said, "FIND ONE WHO IS GOOD".

-The entire Premiership discriminates against women. The manager always male, and is also almost always white, with a conservative haircut, aged between thirty-five and sixty, and a former professional player. Clubs know that if they choose someone with that profile, then even if the appointment turns out to be terrible they won’t be blamed too much, because at least they will have failed in the traditional way. As the old business saying goes, “Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.”

There is no evidence that having been a good player (or being white and of conservative appearance) is an advantage for a soccer manager. Arrigo Sacchi, coach of the great Milan from 1987 to 1991, who couldn’t play soccer himself, explained, “You don’t have to have been a horse to be a jockey.” Playing and coaching are different skill sets. The problem with ex-pros may be precisely their experience. Having
been steeped in the game for decades, they just know what to do: how to train, who to buy, how to talk to their players. They don’t need to investigate whether these inherited prejudices are in fact correct.

- I think you are way off in interpreting what I was saying. Martin Jol could win plenty of games at Madrid, Chelsea, or any big time club. A trained monkey could do just as well. with good players, a good manager is what makes the difference between two clubs. A good manager is one that makes the team perform better than it should. look at the data below. in that time frame, only three teams won titles, Arsenal, Chelsea, and Manchester United. Now look at their deviation numbers, Arsenal spends almost a full deviation less than Chelsea, and half less than United but still manages to win titles. The difference? Wenger. Heck, look at Arsenal and Liverpool. Wenger finished on average, two places higher than Liverpool, and still spent less.

the more you pay your players, the higher you finish, 1998–2007
the first number is average league position, the second is number of standard deviations away from the mean.
Manchester United 2 3.16
Arsenal 2 2.63
Chelsea 3 3.50
Liverpool 4 2.68
Newcastle United 9 1.93
Aston Villa 9 1.34
Tottenham Hotspur 10 1.60
Everton 12 1.41
Middlesbrough 12 1.32
Leeds United 13 1.70
West Ham United 14 1.31
Blackburn Rovers 14 1.48
Charlton Athletic 15 0.98
Bolton Wanderers 16 0.92
Fulham 16 1.24
Southampton 16 0.92
Sunderland 18 1.00
Manchester City 18 1.24
Wigan Athletic 19 0.59
Wimbledon 19 0.94
Birmingham City 20 0.74
Leicester City 21 0.88
Derby County 23 0.82
Ipswich Town 24 0.65
Bradford City 24 0.55
West Bromwich Albion 25 0.52
Reading 26 0.50
Portsmouth 26 0.73
Wolverhampton Wanderers 26 0.61
Coventry City 27 0.70
Sheffield United 27 0.50
Barnsley 28 0.45
Preston North End 28 0.26
Watford 29 0.48
Norwich City 29 0.50
Sheffield Wednesday 29 0.68
Crystal Palace 30 0.47
Nottingham Forest 31 0.62
Millwall 31 0.30
Cardiff City 33 0.37
Burnley 33 0.28
Huddersfield Town 34 0.35
Plymouth Argyle 34 0.16
Stoke City 35 0.26
Gillingham 36 0.19
Tranmere Rovers 37 0.25
Stockport County 37 0.20
Oxford United 38 0.23
Crewe Alexandra 38 0.13
Grimsby Town 38 0.20
Queen's Park Rangers 39 0.55
Hull City 40 0.23
Bury 40 0.21
Swindon Town 40 0.28
Walsall 40 0.19
Port Vale 41 0.24
Rotherham United 41 0.15
Brighton & Hove Albion 42 0.15

- its not one dimensional players, its finding those who are undervalued as a whole. The most important statistic in soccer is goals. Its what creates wins. but does that mean all defensive midfielders are terrible because they never score? no. Its about figuring out which statistics make for good players. Like for example, chances created or pass competition percentage.

 

I haven't read the book, but I think people in their responses have gotten caught too far up on the general statement that it's the 'Moneyball' of soccer. The sports are so varied that it's hard to make a clear correlation. Oakland and it's 'island of misfit toys' everyday players has found success mostly because the A's have developed an amazing amount of starting pitching through their farm system over the past decade plus.

I do agree that signing guys past their prime is something we've been guilty of doing (Duff and Karagounis must have been re-signed more to their professionalism than what they have left in the tank). Berba looks well past it also, but he did score 15 goals last season.

I'm not of the inner workings of management, but success breeds imitation. I hope Fulham have taken note of teams like Southampton and Swansea that have done an excellent job in terms of finding fast athletic players that can translate to the style of play of the Premier League.

Welcome to the site eloc, an interesting topic.