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Football: noncognitive determinants of Carlisle United Football: noncognitive determinants of Carlisle United
(4 days later)
One question will surely be on everyone's lips on Saturday as struggling Carlisle United do battle with equally struggling Sheffield United in the nether regions of English football's League One. Before United's board took their decision to dispense with their manager, Greg Abbott, last weekend, did they consider recent analysis published by Dr Bas ter Weel, head of the department of labour and education at the CPB Netherlands Bureau on Economic Policy Analysis, on the rational way for clubs to respond in such situations?One question will surely be on everyone's lips on Saturday as struggling Carlisle United do battle with equally struggling Sheffield United in the nether regions of English football's League One. Before United's board took their decision to dispense with their manager, Greg Abbott, last weekend, did they consider recent analysis published by Dr Bas ter Weel, head of the department of labour and education at the CPB Netherlands Bureau on Economic Policy Analysis, on the rational way for clubs to respond in such situations?
After almost five years at Carlisle – an exceptional achievement, when the average life of a football manager nowadays is less than two years – Mr Abbott was English football's third longest-serving manager. But with United having taken only two points from six games, while scoring just two goals and conceding a whopping 15, this event was scarcely surprising. Only the most doleful United fans will not be thinking today that a change of manager implies a change of fortune, as happened at Sunderland, where Paolo Di Canio staved off a relegation which even Martin O'Neill had seemed powerless to avert. Yet, as quoted in BBC News Magazine, Dr ter Weel, whose previous studies include the noncognitive determinants of labour-market and behavioural outcomes, thinks such hope is based on delusion.After almost five years at Carlisle – an exceptional achievement, when the average life of a football manager nowadays is less than two years – Mr Abbott was English football's third longest-serving manager. But with United having taken only two points from six games, while scoring just two goals and conceding a whopping 15, this event was scarcely surprising. Only the most doleful United fans will not be thinking today that a change of manager implies a change of fortune, as happened at Sunderland, where Paolo Di Canio staved off a relegation which even Martin O'Neill had seemed powerless to avert. Yet, as quoted in BBC News Magazine, Dr ter Weel, whose previous studies include the noncognitive determinants of labour-market and behavioural outcomes, thinks such hope is based on delusion.
His analysis of results in the Dutch football league between 1986 and 2004 indicates that a change of manager appeared to have little to do with what happened next. Nor is that a purely Dutch phenomenon: teams across Europe suffering a slump will, he asserts, return to their long-term league position regardless of who's in the dugout. As the British football statistician David Sally points out, Sunderland revived last season under Di Canio; yet Reading, who also changed managers, still perished. So had the decision been taken on purely rational grounds, Mr Abbott might have been spared. But in this context, reason often has little to do with it.His analysis of results in the Dutch football league between 1986 and 2004 indicates that a change of manager appeared to have little to do with what happened next. Nor is that a purely Dutch phenomenon: teams across Europe suffering a slump will, he asserts, return to their long-term league position regardless of who's in the dugout. As the British football statistician David Sally points out, Sunderland revived last season under Di Canio; yet Reading, who also changed managers, still perished. So had the decision been taken on purely rational grounds, Mr Abbott might have been spared. But in this context, reason often has little to do with it.
These events are more in the nature of ritual sacrifices, designed to propitiate angry gods: the gods in this case being the fans who turn up for the games. Or, as in the case of Carlisle, don't. The fall in attendances was specifically cited as a reason for the board's decision. Maybe supporters of other struggling clubs should memorise Mr Sally's reported Rumfeldesque rubric: "The extraordinary, numbers-wise, is followed by the ordinary; the ordinary is followed by the ordinary; the ordinary is what happens. The average is what happens more often than not." Meanwhile, we await with impatience the publication of Noncognitive Determinants of Behavioural Outcomes in Academia, by Harry Redknapp.These events are more in the nature of ritual sacrifices, designed to propitiate angry gods: the gods in this case being the fans who turn up for the games. Or, as in the case of Carlisle, don't. The fall in attendances was specifically cited as a reason for the board's decision. Maybe supporters of other struggling clubs should memorise Mr Sally's reported Rumfeldesque rubric: "The extraordinary, numbers-wise, is followed by the ordinary; the ordinary is followed by the ordinary; the ordinary is what happens. The average is what happens more often than not." Meanwhile, we await with impatience the publication of Noncognitive Determinants of Behavioural Outcomes in Academia, by Harry Redknapp.
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