Will They come knocking?

[A-Ro]

To rank managers solely by win percentage is far too simplistic when deciding who is the best. Are you really saying that you think Chris Wilder is the best manager this football club has ever had?

The top goalscorer is rated om the number of goals he has scored, the results are not weighted by whether he was playing in a poor team or whether he had a good midfield behind him.

If you were a Hamilton Academical fan you wouldn't be interested in the nuances of playing budget or level at which the football was played you would only be interested in results. Everything else is personal opinion and you are more entitled to yours than anybody else.

[A-Ro]

To rank managers solely by win percentage is far too simplistic when deciding who is the best. Are you really saying that you think Chris Wilder is the best manager this football club has ever had?

The top goalscorer is rated om the number of goals he has scored, the results are not weighted by whether he was playing in a poor team or whether he had a good midfield behind him.

If you were a Hamilton Academical fan you wouldn't be interested in the nuances of playing budget or level at which the football was played you would only be interested in results. Everything else is personal opinion and you are more entitled to yours than anybody else.

Why is the quoting thing not working now? I've got all the disabled options unchecked.

[bspittles]

Does anyon know how to make a table look like a table on here.

Thanks.

Do it in Notepad with spaces to get everything lined up, then copy and paste into the reply window, highlight everything you want to look like a table and click the &quotCode&quot button (between the reply box and the topic title box.

You'll see the word code surrounded with square backets above and below your highlighted text. Click preview if you want to check your efforts before submitting

[A-Ro]

Code: Select all

Name              Games Won Drawn Lost %Won %Drawn %Lost 
Chris Wilder        129  66    29   34   51     22    26
Ron Saunders         12   6     3    3   50     25    25
Jim Smith           277 136    77   64   49     28    23
Harry Thompson      473 212    89  172   45     19    36
Ian Greaves          54  24    16   14   44     30    26
Roy Barry             7   3     3    1   43     43    14
Arthur Turner       504 218   119  167   43     24    33
Ramon Diaz           25  10     7    8   40     28    32
Ian Atkins          121  48    33   40   40     27    33
Darren Patterson     65  26    13   26   40     20    40
Denis Smith         276 108    62  106   39     22    38
Mickey Lewis         22   7     7    8   32     32    36
Gerry Summers       293  93    89  111   32     30    38
Maurice Evans       150  46    41   63   31     27    42
Brian Horton        251  79    64  108   31     25    43
Malcolm Shotton      89  27    22   40   30     25    45
Mick Brown          187  54    60   73   29     32    39
Bill Asprey          81  22    20   39   27     25    48
Brian Talbot         43  11    15   17   26     35    40
David Kemp Out       31   7     3   21   23     10    68
Graham Rix           29   6     7   16   21     24    55
Mark Wright          22   4     7   11   18     32    50
Mark Lawrenson       23   4     8   11   17     35    48
Mike Ford             8   0     2    6    0     25    75
Malcolm Crosby        5   0     1    4    0     20    80
David Oldfield        1   0     0    1    0      0   100

[A-Ro]

Thanks bspittles I was struggling to get the HTML look anythin like decent.

[Dr Bob]

To rank managers solely by win percentage is far too simplistic when deciding who is the best. Are you really saying that you think Chris Wilder is the best manager this football club has ever had?

The top goalscorer is rated om the number of goals he has scored, the results are not weighted by whether he was playing in a poor team or whether he had a good midfield behind him.

If you were a Hamilton Academical fan you wouldn't be interested in the nuances of playing budget or level at which the football was played you would only be interested in results. Everything else is personal opinion and you are more entitled to yours than anybody else.

Why is the quoting thing not working now? I've got all the disabled options unchecked.

On the other hand, if you are seeking a metric by which to judge a goalscorer, then goals scored is entirely appropriate. Judging a manager by win percentage is problematic because, whilst undoubtedly relevant, it is only one part of the story. AT and JS part 1 (and ME) were managers who delivered truly landmark achievements for the club. As has CW. Any manager that kept us in Division 2 (ah those heady far-off days) would have worked minor miracles as well, but naturally the win percentage would have been modest. Bottom line - a more robust model of managerial performance would require some kind of multivariate analysis. In the meantime, win percentages are at least somewhere to start the debate.

[Mooro]

Code: Select all

Name              Games Won Drawn Lost %Won %Drawn %Lost 
Chris Wilder        129  66    29   34   51     22    26
Ron Saunders         12   6     3    3   50     25    25
Jim Smith           277 136    77   64   49     28    23
Harry Thompson      473 212    89  172   45     19    36
Ian Greaves          54  24    16   14   44     30    26
Roy Barry             7   3     3    1   43     43    14
Arthur Turner       504 218   119  167   43     24    33
Ramon Diaz           25  10     7    8   40     28    32
Ian Atkins          121  48    33   40   40     27    33
Darren Patterson     65  26    13   26   40     20    40
Denis Smith         276 108    62  106   39     22    38
Mickey Lewis         22   7     7    8   32     32    36
Gerry Summers       293  93    89  111   32     30    38
Maurice Evans       150  46    41   63   31     27    42
Brian Horton        251  79    64  108   31     25    43
Malcolm Shotton      89  27    22   40   30     25    45
Mick Brown          187  54    60   73   29     32    39
Bill Asprey          81  22    20   39   27     25    48
Brian Talbot         43  11    15   17   26     35    40
David Kemp Out       31   7     3   21   23     10    68
Graham Rix           29   6     7   16   21     24    55
Mark Wright          22   4     7   11   18     32    50
Mark Lawrenson       23   4     8   11   17     35    48
Mike Ford             8   0     2    6    0     25    75
Malcolm Crosby        5   0     1    4    0     20    80
David Oldfield        1   0     0    1    0      0   100

Risking all kinds of trouble quoting the table, but the preview window indicates it might work.

Thoughts on the table -
- what were the two separate breakdowns for Jim Smith?
- was Kemp only here for 31 games - seemed a lot longer?
- Pattterson did a lot better than Talbot, Rix &amp Wright (his partners in derision) and even better than the likes of Horton &amp Shotton
- Also highlights what an awful spell of appointments followed Denis Smith's departure

[Baboo]

Given the number of games they had in charge Harry Thompson and Arthur Turner have very impressive records.

[A-Ro]

what were the two separate breakdowns for Jim Smith?

RageOnline doesn't split the two main stints. It does however split Jim into two spells, once as caretaker Jim for a couple of games and the other as manager.

[Brahma Bull]

The Patterson stats and his position in the table is interesting.

One of our worst managers, unable to win more than 40% of his games whilst (in the main) in the Conference. To lose 40% of the games at that level was even more disturbing.

[SmileyMan]

To rank managers solely by win percentage is far too simplistic when deciding who is the best. Are you really saying that you think Chris Wilder is the best manager this football club has ever had?

If you look at it from the &quotwhat do I get out of supporting the club?&quot point of view, then what people most want to do is go to a game on Saturday, or listen to it on the radio or whatever, and see a win, preferably with a good performance.

There's some ulterior enjoyment from the place in the table, or the round of the cup, or comaing higher than local rivals, but the basic product that a manager is supposed to deliver is a win on a Saturday afternoon.

From that point of view, win ratio is a very good indicator of manager quality.

Of course, there are issues such as the fact that it's much harder to maintain a high win ration over a larger number of games, so you might want to limit it to a particular 100-game period for each manager (you'd especially want to do this with Jim Smith I feel) but no-one can be arsed to do that, so career stats are the next best thing.

EDIT: I hadn't seen the table. I remember Diaz being better than he obviously actually was.

[SmileyMan]

what were the two separate breakdowns for Jim Smith?

RageOnline doesn't split the two main stints. It does however split Jim into two spells, once as caretaker Jim for a couple of games and the other as manager.

Jim's first stint was P:167 W:89 D:42 L:36 - making him 53% and rightly top of the table.

If you score all games as 3 for a win and 1 for a draw, then it's a very impressive 1.85 points-per-game, compared to Wilder's 1.76

[Dr Bob]

Some economic studies have approached the topic the other way around - what determines the win percentage? Various explanatory variables have been included (all with differing problems), but the results of Dawson (2000) suggest that approximately two-thirds of the variation in win percentage is explained by team quality, one third by the manager. Of course, measuring team quality is subjective and it is tricky finding ways of measuring player quality that are truly independent of manager quality. One variable used in the past has been transfer fees, but post-Bosman this is probably not a good indicator with so many more players now moving for free. One alternative attempted (not quite sure how) is by using an ex ante estimate of player value at the start of a season. Now there is a topic ripe for speculation and debate...

[Dr Bob]

Nearly forgot. Dobson and Goddard (2001) have played around with a dataset of managerial spells in English football, from 1973 to 1999 (1092 managerial spells in total). Awarding 1 point for a win, 0.5 for a draw, 0 for a defeat, dividing by the number of games managed, sitting at number 10 in the list is Jim Smith who, during his spell with us, got a score of 0.663 (the table in their book only shows the top 50). Since success might hit this calculation (promotion in one season results in a lower win percentage the next at a higher level), they then adjust the data. 0.2 is added per match in the season following promotion, 0.1 for the second season up (and -0.2/-0.1 for relegation). Jim Smith's score goes up to 0.715, but he slips to 14th as others overtake him. In the unadjusted table, top is Keegan (Fulham, 46 matches in 1998/9) second is Dalglish (Liverpool, 224 matches over 1985-91). In the adjusted table, top is John Beck. So clearly quality of the football played is not a variable in the calculation.

[Kernow Yellow]

To rank managers solely by win percentage is far too simplistic when deciding who is the best. Are you really saying that you think Chris Wilder is the best manager this football club has ever had?

The top goalscorer is rated om the number of goals he has scored, the results are not weighted by whether he was playing in a poor team or whether he had a good midfield behind him.

If you were a Hamilton Academical fan you wouldn't be interested in the nuances of playing budget or level at which the football was played you would only be interested in results. Everything else is personal opinion and you are more entitled to yours than anybody else.

True, but there's a big difference between 'top goalscorer' and 'best striker'. For example, if Beano scores 21 goals next season (taking him to 90 for the club), no-one is going to argue that he's as good as John Aldridge, even if they scored the same number of goals.

I thought we were discussing who our best manager ever has been - and there's a lot more to that than win ratios. You cannot seriously be suggesting that it is as much of an achievement for Oxford United to win a game in Div 5 against Eastbourne Borough as to win a top-flight match against Arsenal. Or even a Div 4 match against Chesterfield. Can you?

I think a manager's success should be measured more by whether they meet or even exceed expectations - the 'win' expectation on a game-by-game basis for Wilder's team last season was very different from that for Maurice Evans's teams in the mid-80's. But of course the expectations are subjective, hence the current debate about whether Wilder has done a good or bad job this season. As you say, football is all about opinions