Food for thought?

[Chris Black come back]

Some statistics to chew over. Take them or leave them, but maybe some food for thought.

Interesting that since Ferguson came back to Peterborough for his last spell (in January 2011) he has been on a clear downward trajectory in terms of his points per game ratio in League One.

If you remove the seasons he has been above League One (two admirable seasons in the Championship with Peterborough) or below League One (one promotion season in League Two with us) there is a clear trend (i) sharply downwards in his points per game ratio; and (ii) some bizarre negative consistency with us - his now exactly 50 games with us in League One have delivered exactly 50 points.

Omitting his seasons in the Championship and League Two, his record since January 2011 has been:

2010/11 season - 24 games, 43 points - 1.79 points per game
2013/14 season - 46 games, 74 points - 1.60 points per game
2014/15 season - 32 games, 41 points - 1.28 points per game
2015/16 season - 35 games, 35 points - 1.00 points per game
2017/18 season - 15 games, 15 points - 1.00 points per game

[idler]

Let's hope that he starts bucking the trend soon.

[Dare to dream!]

That doesn't make for good reading going forward and Fergie turning it around.

His whole reign has been a major dissapointment. When he was appointed i was covinced he would do well, he had a great record and I bought into the vision of him being with us for a while and taking us back to the championship.

However the reality is both seasons have been failures, he had enough time to turn it around the first season and the collapse last season was unacceptable. Now were facing another season of dissapointment and potentially another relegation which we can't afford.

[since-1969]

When DF was appointed it was on his record and it gave those on board belief that they’d given the club the best available manager  on offer . He is an astute man with an eye for talent but he can only succeed if he keeps the backing of the board , 13 games is too early for those in charge to be concerned. Yet something has to change on the playing side if we are to gather any momentum.

[The Red Baron]

Yesterday's second half display was so awful that I was inclined to think DF might have only three more games (excluding the Checkatrade) to show some improvement. In reality he probably has a bit longer - maybe to early December.

The reason I say early December is the need to give a new manager most of the January window to get in the players he wants.

[ravenrover]

and where do you think the money will come from to"get in the players he wants" whoever he might be?

[since-1969]

and where do you think the money will come from to"get in the players he wants" whoever he might be?

That IS the question, because it looks like the budget has been squandered on Marquis and Williams leaving little to play with . Loans that we have already will return if we are struggling I’m sure whiteman will be required at SUFC to help with their run in . so it’s back to the drawing board for everyone.

[Chris Black come back]

To finish this off, in recent decades we have played in League One under six different managers.

These are their records at League One level, in descending order, from best performing down to the worst performing. The top two are slight outliers given their relatively modest number of games.

Dean Saunders - 26 games and 50 points - 1.92 points per game
Brian Flynn - 20 games and 34 points - 1.70 points per game
Sean O'Driscoll - 86 games and 135 points - 1.56 points per game
Dave Penney - 97 games and 140 points - 1.44 points per game
Paul Dickov - 52 games and 67 points - 1.28 points per game
Darren Ferguson - 50 games and 50 points - 1.0 points per game

[Dagenham Rover]

oeer I was expecting another thread about the catering   

[Jonathan]

To finish this off, in recent decades we have played in League One under six different managers.

These are their records at League One level, in descending order, from best performing down to the worst performing. The top two are slight outliers given their relatively modest number of games.

Dean Saunders - 26 games and 50 points - 1.92 points per game
Brian Flynn - 20 games and 34 points - 1.70 points per game
Sean O'Driscoll - 86 games and 135 points - 1.56 points per game
Dave Penney - 97 games and 140 points - 1.44 points per game
Paul Dickov - 52 games and 67 points - 1.28 points per game
Darren Ferguson - 50 games and 50 points - 1.0 points per game

What that tells me is that if you look solely at league one statistics then Saunders and Flynn were better than arguably our two greatest ever managers (Sean O'Driscoll and Dave Penney) that are placed below them in that hierarchy. 

Quite simply, they were not.

[dickos1]

Exactly Jonathan,

[Bentley Bullet]

To finish this off, in recent decades we have played in League One under six different managers.

These are their records at League One level, in descending order, from best performing down to the worst performing. The top two are slight outliers given their relatively modest number of games.

Dean Saunders - 26 games and 50 points - 1.92 points per game
Brian Flynn - 20 games and 34 points - 1.70 points per game
Sean O'Driscoll - 86 games and 135 points - 1.56 points per game
Dave Penney - 97 games and 140 points - 1.44 points per game
Paul Dickov - 52 games and 67 points - 1.28 points per game
Darren Ferguson - 50 games and 50 points - 1.0 points per game

What that tells me is that if you look solely at league one statistics then Saunders and Flynn were better than arguably our two greatest ever managers (Sean O'Driscoll and Dave Penney) that are placed below them in that hierarchy. 

Quite simply, they were not.

The trouble with that is you're mixing fact with opinion.

[RedJ]

To finish this off, in recent decades we have played in League One under six different managers.

These are their records at League One level, in descending order, from best performing down to the worst performing. The top two are slight outliers given their relatively modest number of games.

Dean Saunders - 26 games and 50 points - 1.92 points per game
Brian Flynn - 20 games and 34 points - 1.70 points per game
Sean O'Driscoll - 86 games and 135 points - 1.56 points per game
Dave Penney - 97 games and 140 points - 1.44 points per game
Paul Dickov - 52 games and 67 points - 1.28 points per game
Darren Ferguson - 50 games and 50 points - 1.0 points per game

What that tells me is that if you look solely at league one statistics then Saunders and Flynn were better than arguably our two greatest ever managers (Sean O'Driscoll and Dave Penney) that are placed below them in that hierarchy. 

Quite simply, they were not.

Well, statistically, at this level, they were...

[eastender]

To finish this off, in recent decades we have played in League One under six different managers.

These are their records at League One level, in descending order, from best performing down to the worst performing. The top two are slight outliers given their relatively modest number of games.

Dean Saunders - 26 games and 50 points - 1.92 points per game
Brian Flynn - 20 games and 34 points - 1.70 points per game
Sean O'Driscoll - 86 games and 135 points - 1.56 points per game
Dave Penney - 97 games and 140 points - 1.44 points per game
Paul Dickov - 52 games and 67 points - 1.28 points per game
Darren Ferguson - 50 games and 50 points - 1.0 points per game

What that tells me is that if you look solely at league one statistics then Saunders and Flynn were better than arguably our two greatest ever managers (Sean O'Driscoll and Dave Penney) that are placed below them in that hierarchy. 

Quite simply, they were not.

Saunders was definitely better than Penny at this level , the Stats prove that.

[Jonathan]

Okay well if people are drawing a conclusion that Flynn was a better manager for us than O'Driscoll then I guess there isn't really much more to be said on the matter.

It's a frankly ludicrous assertion, but I wouldn't say I'm entirely surprised we're heading down that line. I don't think there's much point discussing it further.

[Chris Black come back]

That aside, I would be minded to wrap the Saunders / Flynn records into one. They worked together before Saunders left, had exactly the same squad of players and certainly played the same brand of football. 'Flynders' if you like.

I think folk might also want to ask why the record of our current manager at this level is so clearly far worse than every single other manager, by a range of 25% to almost 100%. This really is quite some striking statistical deviation at this level especially when the sample size of 50 games is so significant.

[VivaRovers]

Brian Flynn was a good and canny manager, but as Jonathan says, you can't argue that he was on the whole better for us - in this division or any - than Sean O'Driscoll was.

That said, I do regularly wonder what might've been had Rovers stuck with Flynn into the Championship rather than going for Dickov.

[wing commander]

That of course depends on Flynn not Rovers,Flynn didn't want to manage in the championship or that's what he told me at a golf day shortly after he was moved upstairs into a senior position..He said he found it all a bit to much at his age and the Brentford game couldn't be beat..That and Mrs Flynn certainly didn't want him to take it as he was never at home...
    Whether that was what actually happened or he was saving face I don't know but a great bloke and too good a putter for me..lol

[RedJ]

Okay well if people are drawing a conclusion that Flynn was a better manager for us than O'Driscoll then I guess there isn't really much more to be said on the matter.

It's a frankly ludicrous assertion, but I wouldn't say I'm entirely surprised we're heading down that line. I don't think there's much point discussing it further.

But nobody has said they ARE better managers. The line is STATISTICALLY they have been better. Which they clearly have.

[drfchound]

CBCB did say that the modest number of games that Flynn and Saunders had should be taken into consideration when making comparisons.

What does stand out however is how bad DF's record is as DRFC manager in L1 and 50 games is a fair indicator to work from.

[Chris Black come back]

Even if Ferguson wins his next two games he will still be eleven points shy of where Dickov was at the same number of League One games in his career with us. So both absolutely and relatively worse than Dickov at this level with us.

[RedJ]

inb4 dickos claiming otherwise

[Jonathan]

Okay well if people are drawing a conclusion that Flynn was a better manager for us than O'Driscoll then I guess there isn't really much more to be said on the matter.

It's a frankly ludicrous assertion, but I wouldn't say I'm entirely surprised we're heading down that line. I don't think there's much point discussing it further.

But nobody has said they ARE better managers. The line is STATISTICALLY they have been better. Which they clearly have.

So what conclusion are you drawing from that?

[drfchound]

I am not sure he is drawing any conclusions, CBCB just put the OP up for people to chew over.

It opened a debate i guess.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Is anyone taking into account the budget that Saunders had?

I thought he'd done a good job at the time. And he did. But then when you saw what we were paying in wages, he bloody well ought to have done. The budget in 12/13 was only a fraction lower than the one that Dickov had to make do with in the Championship the year after.

As for Flynn, our record under him, with the same budget and squad) was moderate.

And the same argument applies to O'Driscoll, when comparing him to Penney. O'Driscoll had a FAR bigger budget than Penney. He inherited Heffernan, Green, Coppinger, O'Connor, Roberts, Guy and Price. The only high wage player he dispensed with was Thornton. And he added  added Mills, Wellens, Stock, Sullivan, and Hayter. Among others.

I never seen the exact figures, but it's unarguable that he had a far bigger budget than Penney. (And it's no coincidence that Watson and Bramall joined the board at the start of his reign.)

So. We've had two/three managers win us promotion from this division in the past decade. Both/all 3 of them had very big budgets. I wouldn't say either/any of them overachieved in the circumstances.

I don't know how Ferguson's budget compares to those but it'd be interesting to chuck that into the analysis. I'd be amazed if it's remotely close to our 07/08 or 12/13 budgets.

[Chris Black come back]

Absolute budgets are important but more important in terms of obtaining promotion from a given league is the relative size of that budget to others in the league (with that being a major if not the major determinant of promotion 9/10).

Put bluntly, if you can outspend most teams in the league then presuming you don’t waste that money on dross, you have a damn good chance of going up. Not certain of course, but relative sizes of budgets in a league are a major determinant no doubt.

We are told our budget now is “competitive” which you would at least take to mean being in the top half of this league. While Saunders and SOD had big budgets in League One, where they relatively much higher than we have now? SOD was competing against much bigger clubs eg Leeds for instance.

[BillyStubbsTears]

O'Driscoll's side won 11 points fewer than Leeds that season.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Saunders's budget was, I suspect, the biggest we've ever had relative to the averge in Division 3.


O'Driscoll's. I've never seen the figures, but the point I was making was that his budget was self-evidently far higher (absolutely and relatively) than that of any other recent Tier 3 manager of ours, barring Saunders. It couldn't be anything else when you consider the players he inherited and the ones he added to the side.

Heffernan, Green, Coppinger, Roberts and O'Connor were all established, experienced top-half of division players. They would have been on decent wages or they wouldn't have come to/stayed with us. Then think what we'd have had to pay other top-level Tier 3 players to join us: Sulivan, Wellens, Stock, Price, Hayter.

It was hinted at, at the time that only Leeds and Forest had higher budgets than ours. They both got more points than we did in 07/08.

I very much doubt that our current budget is in the top 3 in the division. I suspect Wigan, Blackburn, Portsmouth, Bradford, Rotherham and Charlton have significantly higher budgets. And several others have budgets that are at the very least competitive with ours.

[BillyStubbsTears]

One more point.

That very expensive squad which O'Driscoll inherited and built upon.

15 matches into the 07/08 season, it had won just 21 points from 15 games. We were playing dire, passionless, turgid stuff. That followed the end of the previous season where we'd picked up 18 points from the final 19 games. We looked clueless.

He inherited a decent team which was well established in the top half of Tier 3 over the previous two full seasons. He'd been very strongly backed financially. Spent lavishly. And by the end of October 2007 his record with us was 73 points from 54 games. Underwhelming to say the least.

Many of us (myself very much included) were screaming for O'Driscoll to go at this stage of 07/08.

Just consider it.

[RedJ]

Okay well if people are drawing a conclusion that Flynn was a better manager for us than O'Driscoll then I guess there isn't really much more to be said on the matter.

It's a frankly ludicrous assertion, but I wouldn't say I'm entirely surprised we're heading down that line. I don't think there's much point discussing it further.

But nobody has said they ARE better managers. The line is STATISTICALLY they have been better. Which they clearly have.

So what conclusion are you drawing from that?

I am not sure he is drawing any conclusions

Precisely. I'm just saying what the stats show.