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When should you sack a football manager? Results from a simple model applied to the English Premiership

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  • Chris Hope

    (University of Cambridge)

Abstract

What strategy should a football (soccer, in American parlance) club adopt when deciding whether to sack its manager? This paper introduces a simple model assuming that a club's objective is to maximize the number of league points that it scores per season. The club's strategy consists of three choices: the length of the honeymoon period during which it will not consider sacking a new manager, the level of the performance trapdoor below which the manager get the sack, and the weight that it will give to more recent games compared to earlier ones. Some data from the last six seasons of the English Premiership are used to calibrate the model. At this early stage of the research, the best strategy appears to have only a short honeymoon period of eight games (much less than the actual shortest period of 12 games), to set the trapdoor at 0.74 points per game, and to put 47% of the weight on the last five games. A club adopting this strategy would obtain on average 56.8 points per season, compared to a Premiership average of 51.8 points.

Suggested Citation

  • Chris Hope, 2003. "When should you sack a football manager? Results from a simple model applied to the English Premiership," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 54(11), pages 1167-1176, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:jorsoc:v:54:y:2003:i:11:d:10.1057_palgrave.jors.2601621
    DOI: 10.1057/palgrave.jors.2601621
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Peter Dawson & Stephen Dobson & Bill Gerrard, 2000. "Estimating Coaching Efficiency in Professional Team Sports: Evidence from English Association Football," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 47(4), pages 399-421, September.
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    1. Flores, Ramón & Forrest, David & Tena, J.D., 2012. "Decision taking under pressure: Evidence on football manager dismissals in Argentina and their consequences," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 222(3), pages 653-662.
    2. Ray Bachan & Barry Reilly & Robert Witt, 2005. "The Hazard of Being an English Football League Manager: Empirical Estimates from the 2002/3 Season," School of Economics Discussion Papers 1605, School of Economics, University of Surrey.
    3. R Bachan & B Reilly & R Witt, 2008. "The hazard of being an English football league manager: empirical estimates for three recent league seasons," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 59(7), pages 884-891, July.
    4. Antonio Samagaio & Eduardo Couto & Jorge Caiado, 2009. "Sporting, financial and stock market performance in English football: an empirical analysis of structural relationships," CEMAPRE Working Papers 0906, Centre for Applied Mathematics and Economics (CEMAPRE), School of Economics and Management (ISEG), Technical University of Lisbon.
    5. Costanza Torricelli & Maria Cesira Urzì Brancati & Luca Mirtoleni, 2014. "The impact of skill and management structure on Serie A Clubs’ performance," Centro Studi di Banca e Finanza (CEFIN) (Center for Studies in Banking and Finance) 14107, Universita di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Dipartimento di Economia "Marco Biagi".
    6. M B Wright, 2009. "50 years of OR in sport," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 60(1), pages 161-168, May.
    7. Costanza Torricelli & Maria Cesira Urzì Brancati & Luca Mirtoleni, 2014. "The impact of skill and management structure on Serie A Clubs’ performance," Centro Studi di Banca e Finanza (CEFIN) (Center for Studies in Banking and Finance) 0046, Universita di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Dipartimento di Economia "Marco Biagi".
    8. Hwang, Joon Ho & Kim, Min-Su, 2015. "Misunderstanding of the binomial distribution, market inefficiency, and learning behavior: Evidence from an exotic sports betting market," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 243(1), pages 333-344.
    9. Tunaru Radu S & Viney Howard P, 2010. "Valuations of Soccer Players from Statistical Performance Data," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 6(2), pages 1-23, April.
    10. Oberstone Joel, 2009. "Differentiating the Top English Premier League Football Clubs from the Rest of the Pack: Identifying the Keys to Success," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 5(3), pages 1-29, July.
    11. Fry, John & Serbera, Jean-Philippe & Wilson, Rob, 2021. "Managing performance expectations in association football," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 445-453.
    12. S Lessmann & M-C Sung & J E V Johnson, 2011. "Towards a methodology for measuring the true degree of efficiency in a speculative market," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 62(12), pages 2120-2132, December.
    13. B Buraimo & D Forrest & R Simmons, 2009. "Insights for clubs from modelling match attendance in football," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 60(2), pages 147-155, February.

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