Do Football Managers Make a Difference?

Left Back in the Changing Room and More than Mind Games have already commented on Simon Kuper’s* article in the FT that argues that football managers have no real impact on their teams’ fortunes. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have a say too! Kuper writes:

The obsession with football managers is misguided. Hardly any of them make any difference to results. The institution of manager is something of a con-trick. Ferguson and Ancelotti are best understood as marketing tools. The fact is that players’ salaries alone almost entirely determine football results. Stefan Szymanski, economics professor at Cass Business School, studied the spending of 40 English clubs between 1978 and 1997, and found that their spending on salaries explained 92 per cent of their variation in league position. The team that pays most, wins… In English football now, managers could probably be replaced by stuffed teddy bears without their club’s league position changing.