Arsenal: Arsene Wenger is worth 16.6 points to the overachieving Gunners every season
WHAT is Arsene Wenger worth to Arsenal? Of late, the one who, as the famous banners declares “Knows” has had his position questioned. Results have gone against the Gunners. Defeats to lower league opposition in this season’s domestic cups and no silverware since 2005 are cited as evidence for Wenger’s declining influence. But to get rid of Wenger would be wrong. It’s not that Wenger’s Arsenal is failing; it’s more that his side have been fighting above their weight for years.
A study by Zach Slaton, a US analyst, shows that in the past nine seasons, Wenger’s Gunners have won, on average, 16.6 points more than their transfer spend should expect to gain.
He notes:
Premier League teams who spend as much as Arsenal have the last several years tend to have an average table position of seventh. Over the long term, teams that spend “as little” as Arsenal does are expected to finish tenth or worse once every ten years.
Let’s see it in graphs:
The first table of data presented below represents the overall manager rankings from all 20 years of the Premier League. As the overall ranking was supplied in the earlier post, a comparison to each manager’s performance from the previous ranking (through the 2010/11 season) is also supplied as a part of this table.
He adds:
It is time to turn our attention to the post-Abramovich era now that the overall 20-year rankings are understood. It’s this ranking from the “financial doping” era of the Premier League where savvy managers really display their unique buying and selling powers to assemble low-cost, high performing teams. A table ranking the 52 managers who meet the 38 match minimum threshold is shown below. As there was no such ranking done in the previous post, the table below does not contain a comparison to each manager’s 2010/11 ranking.
Simon Kuper noted:
In his first seven seasons at Arsenal, from 1996/1997, he [Wenger] averaged a league position of 1.6 while accounting for 7.5 per cent of the Premier League’s wages.
With 20 clubs in the League, 5% is the mean.
…From 2005 through 2010, Arsenal had an average league position of 3.3 while spending 8.8 per cent of the Premier League’s wages. That’s only modest overachievement. Yet during Wenger’s worst moments, especially after Arsenal’s 8-2 thrashing at Old Trafford last August, his critics were too harsh on him. Given that he was up against richer clubs, and against another great overachieving manager in Ferguson, it would have been astonishing had Arsenal continued to win titles. In particular, it was unfair to castigate Wenger for his regular defeats to Chelsea. The wage gap between the two clubs has been vast since Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea in 2003, and gave his manager Claudio Ranieri a mammoth 16 per cent of the Premier League’s wage spending for 2003/2004.
Last season, after nine years and more than £1bn poured into the club, Chelsea turned their first profit of the Abramovich era. They made £1.4m. And they had to win the Champions’ League prize money (about £47m) to do that.
Note: Arsenal need to spend £100m to regain the Premier League, or come close to doing so.
Posted: 17th, February 2013 | In: Sports Comments (9) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
February 18th, 2013 at 1:00 pm
Spectrum, well said. Indeed, at £7million a year, there can be no sentiment in football, indeed all the most successful clubs in the world are the most ruthless. The reason why Liverpool and Man Utd are more succussful than us, although they have not been in the top flight anywhere near as long, is because when the ‘tough’ decisions had to be made – they made them. When AW’s time comes, and it will be the fans only that can bring that about, we will not be sending him home to his family not knowing how the bills will be paid. Business and football are all about calculated risk, you do your maths to the best of your ability, and you press go…Just ask Liverpool and Man Utd…
February 18th, 2013 at 12:23 pm
Anorak, with all due respect, what utter bollox! I too have fiollowed our team everywhere, Copenhagen, Paris finals x2 both defeats with the CL tocket alone costing me £1,200, to Ireland for pre-season friendlies etc. Now let me tell you about AW. Firstly, he was sacked at Monaco for being a ‘nearly man’, the afluent owners at the club, deemed his limited success, (1 league, 1 cup, a few years inbetween) as insufficent. He then went to Japan, where all young ambitious managers head to, yeah? Luckilly for him, he forged a relationship with David Dein, who saw a sophistication in him not akin to your ‘normal’ football manager. So he arrives, and what great timing it was for him. A time when Alex Ferguson had no real competition, had one all and sundrie for succesive years and I’m sure Sir Alex might agree (not that he cares now) was in a bit of a lull, his trousers were caught down. Wenger also crucially inherited GG’s defence, something and someones that 18 years later he has continually failed to replace…Boy has he failed there, to the extent that we are told that he does not personally conduct any defencive training!!!!????. Should I repeat that? No, not really because it should be apparent to anyone who knows the game, he farking clueless in this regard! Hence Pat Rice and Steve Bould, if only he would let them stand up or say anything, eh. So, he won a few trophies, although tellingly failed to retain the league, not a problem for his ‘peer such as Fergie and Mourinho. Lets not forget Mourinho, who an AW team did not beat ONCE in his time here. Can’t wait for him to return to England can you? No then, lets really get into it, and what is happening at our once great club. Ironically we go back to the man who brought AW to the club, Dein. Dein had a difference of opinion with many of the old guard on the board, such as Hill-Wood, who clearly believes he has some hereditary hold on the club, because his father and his fathers father sat on the board, etc, and other old dinosaur’s some of which now wish they had done things differently and were sold a pup, and that pup was to close ranks on the best thing that happened to the club, David Dein, his new ideas, that if were really to compete, we had to bring in wealthy people, but wealthy people that were prepared to spend, like Alisha Uzmanov. Why? Because old bastards like Hill-Wood knew that a new man like Uzmanov would get rid of dead wood (forgive the pun), thats why to this day, Uzmanov with a share holding of over 30% does not have a place on the board. Unbelievable! Then we have the Corporate Governence issues. Get this…AW, the football coach, attends board meetings. Why? They are there to discuss (amongst other things) the performance of the team and its manager. Talk about AW being an elephant in the room. Now really get this…AW interviewed Ivan Gazidis for the prospective Chief Execs role. What?? Why is the football manager part of an interview process at all, let alone interviewing the man, who (amongst other things) has responsibilty to sack the football manager. Getting the picture here? Bit of a conflict of interest there don’t you think, it could be percieved that Gazidis, who’s CV in business is laughable, was brought in to ‘sit tight and shut up, and your fit in nicely, oh and you can give yourself a 25% pay rise in a year or so, which will make you higher paid than all of Chelsea’s board put together’…Nice work if you can get it Ivan! AW is the higest paid manager in the country, far higher than Ferguson, 2nd highest in Europe, yet has a far lower honour/year ratio than George Graham. He doesn’t want to buy big, because he does not want to raise expectation, because he knows that he is not up to the job, his record against his peers shows that, he’s clueless and he cannot win big games, he hasn’t even won a European trophy of any kind, FFS. Sorry but if you think that he is doing a good job, and this is what football is all about you should spend your time more wisely. No one will remember Arsenal’s ideology in 10, 20, 50 years time, the only thing that matters is getting your name engraved on silverware. The day young boys, take down their team photo’s from their bedroom walls and replace them with robust balance sheets is a day after football is well and truely dead!
February 18th, 2013 at 6:44 am
Gerry – Damn ! You beat me to it. I was about to say the same thing. “Punching above our weight” ? ” Overachieving” ? Ha-ha ! The A.K.B.’s will clutch at anything to demonstrate their blind faith and stupidity in believing these so called facts and figures. All these stats do is CONFIRM how much BETTER we could have done IF we had spent more. Hell, we MIGHT have actually won something ( wouldn’t that be a novelty ) ?
We have known for years now that Wenger has been given the funds to buy better players than the cheap bargains and dross that he has brought in* ( *with a couple of exceptions ). A Google search will confirm that the board , Kroenke, and Gazidis have said that if Wenger wanted a player, then funds would be provided for him to do so ( from May 2010 – http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/gazidis-we-have-sufficient-funds-to-invest ). Wenger has CHOSEN not to do so, just as he has CHOSEN not to do so in the recent transfer window. So if anything these charts and statistics, far from showing how “clever and resourceful” Wenger has been, throws the spotlight on his neglect, and the wasted opportunities that he’s had to achieve so much more than merely finishing top 4 every year.
But I’m not surprised that his defenders want to pretend that he’s a miracle worker. After all, they think he walks on water. Desperate people resort to desperate measures. We realists don’t fall for this sort of misleading spin.
” In Arsene we rust.”
February 17th, 2013 at 9:19 pm
I’m a Gooner. But not of the monocular sort, like Piers Morgan, who seem to believe Arsenal deserve to win things by the volume of their moaning. When I first watched Arsenal, I never expected them to win anything. When I got on the coach to Liverpool in 1989, I had almost zero expectation. I just wanted to be there with my mates. And when there is chance of winning, a true fan goes along for the ride. I am amazed when they win a Cup – not when they don’t. That’s what makes me go mad with joy when they do win – have won. It’s not the expectation – I’m not a bloody 13-year-old Chelsea fan called Henry or a Man United fan in Tampa. It’s the spontaneity. Wenger is fantastic because in the face of the reality that Arsenal are not all that good he delivers hope. All the soppy sods calling for his head should wonder how it came to pass that they now expect victory. Go back to that Friday afternoon before Micky Thomas ‘did it’. It wasn’t so long ago…
February 17th, 2013 at 8:48 pm
Unfortunately, the AW narrative is written. The facts are irrelevant.
Very sad to see the daggers going in so hard on him. One expects it from the press but Arsenal fans should should show him respect, whatever their opinion about his future at the club.
History will show AW was one of the greatest and Gooners may regret the day they forced him out. Should that come to pass.
February 17th, 2013 at 8:18 pm
Sigh! For 7 long years, I’ve been scavenging for a morsel like this to keep my hope/faith of seeing the light at the end of tunnel.
Now, I’m too numb to feel any hope. If we finish 4th – such is our standards, at the end of this season, I would relieved.
‘Joy’ of my football team is just a pipe dream for now.
February 17th, 2013 at 7:56 pm
Indeed. spend more and win more But not always. Not if your manager is a failure – like Ranieri was
February 17th, 2013 at 7:48 pm
Excellent analysis. Puts things into perspective. Wenger has consistently overachieved during his Arsenal tenure. No other coach/manager has been able compete with the money clubs in the EPL whilst having one hand tied behind his back, financially, as Wenger has done.
It’s shallow that people only choose to quantify the mans achievements with their obsessiveness for a trophy as their only method of greatness.
February 17th, 2013 at 7:08 pm
Errr yeah, so spend some more and you might win us something you silly bastard!!!