*Official* English Football Season 2022/23

[BoyBrumby]

With all the excitement I totally missed the fact that Man City got beat today. Not that it mattered.

Pothas to disagree.

IIRC that's the double over Citeh for the Bees.

 

[GIMH]

Arsenal finish with a better record than City in the 36 games against clubs other than each other. Which is fairly meaningless other than to highlight how City’s killer instinct in the big games this season has been huge.

(Obviously City probably finish with another five points from the week just gone if they need to, but even then the two wins V Arse remain pivotal)

 

[Pothas]

Pothas to disagree.

IIRC that's the double over Citeh for the Bees.

I don't think Pep will ever play that team again but we were still great.

59 points. Incredible season.

 

[sledger]

Most points Arsenal have managed in a season since the Invincibles year as well.

The future is hopefully bright.

Edit: @geraint

 

[Socerer 01]

Most points Arsenal have managed in a season since the Invincibles year as well.

The future is hopefully bright.

Edit: @geraint

investment is key with smart recruitment. Spurs were in a similar position 5-6 years ago and lost their way because they didn’t buy anyone for a year and then bought the wrong players trusting their manager input too much. so far it seems like Kroenke jr and Edu are smart cookies

 

[Socerer 01]

Really should have been another 5 minutes added for the time-wasting in the last 10, but ho-hum. Reckpn Everton will be back in this battle next year TBH, got no money and a **** squad, who can't score.

they will be sold to some American group soon, it was already half confirmed and Dyche can work magic with these duds

 

[duffer]

Most points Arsenal have managed in a season since the Invincibles year as well.

The future is hopefully bright.

Edit: @geraint

The importance of keeping Saliba can't be understated though. He's truly a transformational player.

 

[sledger]

Yeah, need to get him signed. If he goes the game is up.

 

[Uppercut]

Interesting how many teams this season were playing badly, sacked a highly rated manager, and became even worse. Spurs, Chelsea (x2), Leeds (though the more egregious example was last season), Leicester, Southampton. I think the new manager bounce might be dead?

Then there’s Forest looking awful and being expected to sack the manager, suddenly deciding to sack the DoF and give the manager a new contract instead, and having things work out.

 

[Furball]

Interesting how many teams this season were playing badly, sacked a highly rated manager, and became even worse. Spurs, Chelsea (x2), Leeds (though the more egregious example was last season), Leicester, Southampton. I think the new manager bounce might be dead?

Then there’s Forest looking awful and being expected to sack the manager, suddenly deciding to sack the DoF and give the manager a new contract instead, and having things work out.

The defence calls its first witness: AFC Bournemouth.

I think the new manager bounce is best explained as a reversion to the mean; managers generally get sacked after a period of under-performance so the 'bounce' is actually just natural variance.

In terms of a lack of bounce, I also don't think it helps when all the clubs you've listed (with the possible exception of Chelsea appointing Potter) appointed bad managers to replace under-performing ones.

Crystal Palace and arguably Everton also benefitted from sacking Vieira and Lampard respectively.

 

[sledger]

I guess it kind of depends on how far you can separate the new manager "bounce" from experiencing an upturn in fortunes after sacking a manager who is just self evidently crap tbh.

E.g. Leeds sacked Marsch, who seemed a totally serviceable coach, presumably looking for a bounce they never got, whereas Villa and Bomo sacked their coaches who were clearly just plain bad, replaced them with competent people, and experienced drastic improvements.

 

[sledger]

I think to some extent the new manager bounce thing is a bit of a myth anyway, if we are to loosely define it as a late season change of manager whilst staring relegation in the face anyway. There was an article on the Sky Sports website that suggested in the overwhelming majority of cases it doesn't work (has succeeded on averting relegation on less than 20% of the times it's been attempted since the start of the Premier League or something - though granted I daresay on plenty of occasions this may be down to a change of manager being made far too late or something).

 

[Pothas]

Yeah all the ones that worked this year were just a case of clubs hiring an obviously better manager than they had before.

It will be interesting to see if clubs act any differently next season or if the same panic will set in.

 

[GIMH]

Interesting how many teams this season were playing badly, sacked a highly rated manager, and became even worse. Spurs, Chelsea (x2), Leeds (though the more egregious example was last season), Leicester, Southampton. I think the new manager bounce might be dead?

Then there’s Forest looking awful and being expected to sack the manager, suddenly deciding to sack the DoF and give the manager a new contract instead, and having things work out.

Leicester improved under Smith, but that largely meant a lot of draws whereas before him it was a lot of defeats. I’d say they arguably moved too late. Hard to argue with your point though. And I’m not really sure Everton were much better under Dyche than Lampard.

I know Furball mentioned Bournemouth but Villa and Palace are surely the better counter examples.

 

[andruid]

I guess it kind of depends on how far you can separate the new manager "bounce" from experiencing an upturn in fortunes after sacking a manager who is just self evidently crap tbh.

E.g. Leeds sacked Marsch, who seemed a totally serviceable coach, presumably looking for a bounce they never got, whereas Villa and Bomo sacked their coaches who were clearly just plain bad, replaced them with competent people, and experienced drastic improvements.

I guess in the grand scheme of things only a Bielsa type was going to sustainably get a tune out of that Leeds squad, and even then only when the team is fully healthy

 

[Himannv]

The new manager bounce is definitely a thing. Players generally lift their game to impress the new boss so you see better performances at times. It's just that in many cases, team performances haven't just been down to reduced player effort.

In Dyche's case, he didn't really change the attack much and his tactical changes were related to improving ball recoveries and interceptions, and as a result, giving the opposition less chances to score. Also he made them pass the ball more directly and into the right channels and obviously he reduced the spaces a bit. Clearly Everton weren't doing these things as well before, which is why you see different stats and better performances, but it's nothing ground-breaking really.

So in Everton's case, they didn't have a proper style of play/tactics in place to deal with the quality of the opposition and perhaps there were more finer margins to consider like technical deficiencies, key player performance issues/injuries, positioning, etc., plus the obvious circus associated with their boardroom. Having said that, I'd argue that the new man coming in gave them a bit of freshness and focus that helped in addition to the relatively minor tactical tweaks that he made.

Leeds, on the other hand, were just shambolic defensively and were probably more suited to Bielsa-ball than the siege mentality that came with Big Sam. Marsch, while being a promising manager, completely failed to address their defensive short-comings and is equally culpable. They'd probably have been relegated regardless of who the manager was (unless it was Pep Guardiola of course).

 

[GIMH]

New manager bounce only works if the squad is good enough in the first place. Most would say Dyche has done a better job than Lampard but it’s been marginal in output because it’s a poor squad bereft of goals whereas you look at Villa and clearly it’s made a huge difference because they were massively underperforming.

 

[Uppercut]

Leicester improved under Smith, but that largely meant a lot of draws whereas before him it was a lot of defeats. I’d say they arguably moved too late. Hard to argue with your point though. And I’m not really sure Everton were much better under Dyche than Lampard.

I know Furball mentioned Bournemouth but Villa and Palace are surely the better counter examples.

I think Villa are just an example of improving by replacing a terrible manager with a good one.

Palace are definitely a counter example though. I ended up posting about them a lot this season and how I thought they were a decent team getting a little unlucky during a rough patch of fixtures, and I think they would still have pulled clear under Vieira. I also didn't think Vieira was a brilliant coach (though he wasn't terrible either). But I'm just making excuses, it was a textbook new manager bounce.

 

[Uppercut]

The new manager bounce is definitely a thing. Players generally lift their game to impress the new boss so you see better performances at times. It's just that in many cases, team performances haven't just been down to reduced player effort.

In Dyche's case, he didn't really change the attack much and his tactical changes were related to improving ball recoveries and interceptions, and as a result, giving the opposition less chances to score. Also he made them pass the ball more directly and into the right channels and obviously he reduced the spaces a bit. Clearly Everton weren't doing these things as well before, which is why you see different stats and better performances, but it's nothing ground-breaking really.

So in Everton's case, they didn't have a proper style of play/tactics in place to deal with the quality of the opposition and perhaps there were more finer margins to consider like technical deficiencies, key player performance issues/injuries, positioning, etc., plus the obvious circus associated with their boardroom. Having said that, I'd argue that the new man coming in gave them a bit of freshness and focus that helped in addition to the relatively minor tactical tweaks that he made.

Leeds, on the other hand, were just shambolic defensively and were probably more suited to Bielsa-ball than the siege mentality that came with Big Sam. Marsch, while being a promising manager, completely failed to address their defensive short-comings and is equally culpable. They'd probably have been relegated regardless of who the manager was (unless it was Pep Guardiola of course).

Everton were definitely a bit better under Dyche. I agree that he tightened the tactics up a little and brought more of a set piece threat, but the biggest thing he did was just getting Doucoure in the team.

I'm fairly sure Leeds would have stayed up under Marsch though. They were only in 17th when he was sacked and their performances up to that point were much better than their results. They got two new manager dips and by the end of the season were a complete shambles.

 

[sledger]

I think Villa are just an example of improving by replacing a terrible manager with a good one.

Palace are definitely a counter example though. I ended up posting about them a lot this season and how I thought they were a decent team getting a little unlucky during a rough patch of fixtures, and I think they would still have pulled clear under Vieira. I also didn't think Vieira was a brilliant coach (though he wasn't terrible either). But I'm just making excuses, it was a textbook new manager bounce.

Uppercut in subtlely referring to Emery as a good manager shocker