In my last article I looked for evidence that manager changes had an effect on a team’s performance. I did not see any evidence that sacking a manager had a positive effect on the teams included in that sample (5 leagues from the 2024/25 season.) This week I have done the same analysis for a new sample, namely the top 5 European leagues in the 2023/24 season.
Results
The thicker red lines are the average of all the thin team performance lines.
Table 1
Table 2
Conclusion
The results here add little to what was seen last time out – namely a manager getting sacked had little influence on a team’s performance. The average on the team performance plot is less pretty than for the previous sample – it stays pretty flat. As teams had not suffered a recent performance decay before the managers were changed, their performance did not regress upwards. This is a little surprising but it could be a quirk of the sample. It’s possible if I looked at goal difference it might illustrate better why the managers were removed for the teams involved in the plot. I will include that metric next time I look at managers! Overall my stance has remained the same – I am sceptical that managers have a strong link to the performance of a team.
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