If a Premier League manager cannot jump ship they will be thrown overboard

A football manager should join a new club with one hope – to have a run of good luck and get a better job before they have a run of bad luck and get the sack.

Already this season five Premier League managers have lost their jobs. Arsenal sacked Unai Emery, Everton sacked Marco Silva, Tottenham sacked Mauricio Pochettino, Watford sacked Javi Gracia and Quique Sanchez Flores. All were dismissed after some bad results.

If you look at a sacked manager’s full record rather than just the last bit, though, you will often see something curious.

Emery won 88 points in the Premier League from 51 games. From the previous 51 games Arsenal won 88 points. Exactly the same. Silva won 68 points from 53 games. From the previous 53 games Everton won 73 points. Quite similar.

Sanchez Flores won seven points from ten games, two more than Gracia won from his last ten games. Altogether Gracia won 66 points from 56 games. From the previous 56 games Watford won 59 points.

Javi Gracia was fired by Watford in SeptemberCredit: Alex Broadway

You would be surprised how many times a sacked manager’s record turns out to be pretty much the same as his predecessor’s. Of course the predecessor was fired as well. And for the same reason: they hit a run of bad results. Unless they move on, almost every manager eventually has a run of bad results and gets the sack.

There is an explanation for why so many managers of a club finish with similar records. A manager nearly always has less influence on results than almost everyone believes.

We live in an age obsessed with leaders. Perhaps all ages are. When things go well the leader gets the credit and when things go badly the leader gets the blame. Leaders like this when things go well. When things go badly some leaders argue that they were responsible for the good times but the bad times are somebody else’s fault. Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not.

In most fields failure is attributable at least partly to luck. But so is success. In some fields success and failure are attributable almost wholly to luck.

The philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect.” It is the sort of thing somebody says when life has turned out well for them and they do not realise how much of their good life is down to good luck.

Football management is a bit like financial trading. Successes and failures occur almost entirely by accident. With only rare exceptions this is what happens in financial markets: a trader who did well this year is no more likely than any other trader to do well next year, and a trader who did badly this year is no more likely than any other trader to do badly next year.

There are similarities between football management and financial tradingCredit: Jamie McCarthy

But a trader who did well this year will get a huge bonus and might be headhunted. They are lavishly rewarded for having been lucky. They did not make their luck. It just came to them. And soon it will go to somebody else.

A football manager who has a burst of good results will be given a longer contract with a higher salary. Perhaps the club are manoeuvring for better compensation if the manager is headhunted. If they think they will still want him at the end of this longer contract they have learned nothing from experience. The manager signs mostly so that he will get a bigger payoff if he is not headhunted and results turn against him and he is sacked.

Football managers have more skill than financial traders, but at any given level differences in skill are small, so large differences in results at a club over a short time must be explicable by something else, namely luck.

The results of each club will fluctuate around a level determined by the skill of the players, which over time will be the level at which they are paid. Across the past few seasons – rather than an isolated month or two here and there – the results of Arsenal, Everton and Watford have been broadly consistent with their payrolls.

The results of Tottenham have not, but that is because Tottenham have enjoyed a string of good outcomes in the transfer market and now have a squad of players who are better than they are paid to be.

Over time some clubs will usually get better results than others, because over time some clubs will usually pay more than others.

Warren Buffett has been a stock trader for nearly 70 years, so his success is probably down to skill more than luck. We can take him as one of those rare exceptions. Before buying or selling shares Buffett studies a company more deeply than the men and women at the top of it. He says: “A good managerial record is far more a function of what business boat you get into than it is of how effectively you row.” Every football manager is rowing a boat that now and again will spring a leak.

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