FAN ARTICLES
Moyes: What the Stats Say
Comments (31) : In the ongoing debate about the ability of David Moyes, I am never entirely sure what my opinion should be. When I watch Everton play (admittedly on television as I cannot attend matches) I often find myself decrying several things: the total inability of Phil Neville to play in midfield, the total inability of Tony Hibbert to play football at all, our defenders hoofing it instead of passing it and so on. David Moyes does make some strange decisions, that is for sure, and our style of play leaves much to be desired.
On the other hand, looking at where we were under Walter Smith and the squad he left compared to now it seems rather foolish to think we should sack Moyes. Yes, he has spent a bit of money but most of this has been earned through league position bonuses and European qualification. And every manager makes strange decisions (as a Scot I watched Kris Boyd being overlooked for Iwelumo ? oh, that miss!). Even the best managers have favourites that are picked ahead of others; for example, does anyone other than Arsene Wenger think that Eboue is any good? How does Darren Fletcher get a game at Man U? More to the point, how did Phil Neville?
As I was so undecided I thought I would take an unbiased look at the stats. The figures for Moyes I have taken from the official league tables. The stats for other managers admittedly come from Wikipedia so anyone with the inclination might wish to check them more thoroughly.
At first glance it looks pretty good. The last two seasons have seen two top-six finishes, one of them with more points than our Champions? League qualification season, and during both of them we have had the best goal difference outside the top 4. Not bad for a negative, defensive team. Moyes has delivered top ten finishes in four of his six seasons, something that had only previously happened to Everton once in ten years of Premier League football. All in all, undeniable progress and pretty good results.
Taking into account the league results in Moyes? six full seasons plus the beginning of this season and the end of the 2001-02 season, he has a win rate of exactly 40%. This rises to 41.69% when you consider results in all competitions. He has a career win rate of 44.7%.
So how does this compare to his peers and other high profile bosses? Let?s get the ludicrous one out of the way first ? Jose Mourinho. For those who doubt how good he is, which includes myself, his win rate at both Porto and Chelsea was 70.8%. He has a career win rate of 68.89%. Sir Alex Ferguson has a record of 57.94% at Manchester United, 56.77% for his career. Arsene Wenger?s record is 57.35% at Arsenal and 52.93% for his career while Rafa Benitez has won 56.97% of matches at Liverpool.
Of course, the differences between these clubs and Everton in resources and international reputation (important for attracting players) makes it unreasonable to put Moyes? record against these managers?. With the quality of players available to him he could not be expected to match them. So what about the managers of other clubs?
Newcastle could be considered a comparable club. Unfortunately they don?t keep managers long enough for any accurate comparison to be made. But we?ll take Kevin Keegan?s record. His career win rate is 50.8%. Obviously this covers the periods in charge of Newcastle when they were a top club, and at Fulham when they were spending Premier League money in the lower leagues. I?m not convinced Keegan?s record tells us anything at all. On one hand his teams certainly play exciting and attractive football but on the other hand he would probably have struggled to work within Moyes? financial constraints.
Phil Brown has been mentioned by fans on this site following Hull?s promising start. Things have gone well for him there and his win rate at Hull is 44.44%. However his short and unsuccessful stint at Derby (21.2%) and a few games as caretaker at Bolton (an impressive four wins and a draw from five games) make his career win rate 39.8%.
Steve Bruce has a win rate at Wigan of 37.14%. His career rate of 38.4% has been achieved in part at a lower league level and has included promotion and relegation seasons. He has arguably not managed any clubs at Everton?s level but did have a fair amount of money at Birmingham.
The three managers in the Premier League that I believe make the best comparison to Moyes are Mark Hughes, Martin O?Neill and Harry Redknapp. All manage clubs at roughly the same level as us with reasonably similar resources.
Hughes has a win rate of 70% at Man City but his Blackburn figure of 43.61% is probably more relevant. His career figure of 44.94% is very similar to that of Moyes. Harry Redknapp?s win rate at Portsmouth of 42.98% is remarkably similar as well, though his career figure drops to 38.47%. Martin O?Neill has a win rate at Villa of 38.7%, though winning three-quarters of his matches at Celtic gives him a healthy total of 54.10%. (To give an idea of the difficulty of achieving this, Gordon Strachan has figures of 32.55% at Coventry, 35.45% at Southampton but a mammoth 67.62% at Celtic.)
People can and probably should draw their own conclusions from all this but for what it?s worth here are mine. The figures for the most comparable managers are very similar and probably indicate that they have similar levels of ability. Harry Redknapp?s huge experience is probably a crucial factor in his success at Portsmouth, and he clearly is very good at getting players to want to sign for him. Perhaps he is more decisive than Moyes in transfers? As for the others their performances match up well.
This shows that Moyes is not statistically inferior to these other managers, but nor is he as critical to the club as Kenwright feels he is. The Moyesiah is just Moyes. He is no better or worse than many others, so is the shite football really worth it? If he could just work out what went right in the good seasons and wrong in the bad seasons he would be on to a winner.
The statistics also raise the interesting possibility that the 45% win rate mark is as high as it is possible to go unless you are the boss of a Sky 4 club.
Reader Comments (31)
Note: the following content is not moderated or vetted by the site owners at the time of submission. Comments are the responsibility of the poster. Disclaimer
3 Posted 24/10/2008 at 15:34:33
" We win more when we have a fit team and when we win more we are more confident."
No shit Sherlock !
That. "On the floor stuff."
Was only played in a handfull of games as far as i can remember. The rest of the time it was route one as usual. No we are not Arsenal and yes it is that bad.
4 Posted 24/10/2008 at 15:22:57
5 Posted 24/10/2008 at 15:53:51
He has, as I understand it, no intention of leaving. With this in mind I suspect he is looking for an "Investor". Basically somebody with pots of money who will let him hang around.
"Watch this space !"
6 Posted 24/10/2008 at 16:03:58
7 Posted 24/10/2008 at 16:24:03
8 Posted 24/10/2008 at 16:31:45
9 Posted 24/10/2008 at 16:38:35
It would also be interesting to see these figures stacked up against net transfer expenditure.
Oh and I think redknapp is pot luck in the transfer market he’ll sign anyone with a bung attached and so gets some good and some bad...
10 Posted 24/10/2008 at 16:49:32
We’ve heard all this stuff before, it’s as obviously contrived today as it always has been.
Yaaaaawwwnnnnnnnnn
11 Posted 24/10/2008 at 16:36:53
We need change from top to bottom because we are a champion club not a Walt Disney senario of being Mickey Mouse, check our history and the blood sweat and tears we have being through we as Everton deserve only the best so lets change and get REAL Evertonians in power!!!
COYB!!!! BEAT THE MAN U TOMORROW!!!
12 Posted 24/10/2008 at 19:08:33
Reward? Sacked! You’re a lucky lad Davy that you have Bullshit Billy as a boss!
13 Posted 24/10/2008 at 19:19:45
Moyes is not to blame for hoof ball. Its not Fifa, its not pro evo, the players don?t have remote controls. Once they are on the pitch that is it Moyes can't control each and every pass. that is down to the player.
If Jags decides to hoof the ball down the pitch after a week of Moyes telling him not to. All Moyes can do is drop him. Then Yobo comes in and does the exact same thing. The only other thing he can do is sell them and bring someone in who can pass the ball which he is in no position to do.
Moyes has a problem with the timing of tactical changes. He will only do something about a bad situation when it is too late and the opportunity has long gone.
14 Posted 24/10/2008 at 21:12:46
He should be working on that shit in training, getting midfielders to drop for the ball early and start an attack, what a stupid thing to say that it's not his fault, he's the manager for fucks sake!!
15 Posted 24/10/2008 at 21:32:06
Bit selective aren’t we.
Care to do a reappraisal at the end of THIS season?
16 Posted 24/10/2008 at 21:36:55
17 Posted 24/10/2008 at 22:09:38
I have been watching Everton for 42 yrs now and I was there when we played Carlisle when we had 8,000 odd in the Milk Cup or whatever it was then. So I don't think its too much to expect when we do so well one season like being unfortunate to go out to Fiorentina and finishing 5th in the league. That we should believe that we are looking at good times ahead. And then we have to put up with this shite and we have people saying we have to be patient and trust the fucking liars and conmen who are Laughing at the people who line their pockets.
I don't think for 1 minute they know or fucking care what it felt like to be an Evertonian in this fucking city after that non-turnout in the derby game the other week. Going back maybe 10 yrs or so, if an Everton player didn't try in a derby game he wouldn't be able to show his face 'til he gave a very good show. I would rather have the Dogs of War any fucking day.
We are certainties for the relagation dogfight and I don't think we have the manager or the squad he has put together. But I will still be there. After they have gone.
18 Posted 24/10/2008 at 23:42:37
Moyes took over a club that was on its knees, and financially, still is. Kenwright is going to have to bite the bullet, and accept a buyer, not an investor. Maybe he?ll get lucky with a buyer who?ll go with the idea of him as Life President, or Chief Mascot, or whatever, but the fact is that it?s obvious Moyes has ideas, and those ideas are going to cost money. Ferguson?s did. Vaughan, Anichebe, Rodwell et al are going to need to be bolstered by big money signings.
Meanwhile, later today, Money United at going to need to be scared by one bastard of a roar at noon.
19 Posted 25/10/2008 at 00:05:59
20 Posted 25/10/2008 at 04:21:39
Another example is the guy who wrote the article about the the Arsenal game saying we should have gone 4-4-2 when it was 1-0 at half time!! The way Arsenal came at us in the second half was frightful and if we were 4-4-2 it would have been 6 or 7-1 at the end.
21 Posted 25/10/2008 at 09:42:00
22 Posted 25/10/2008 at 14:16:40
Hughes = 44
O?Neil = 56
Bruce = 47
some of the comments on here obviously come from very bitter fans - opinion is all well and good but it?s just hot air without a little perspective. Statistics are not a guarantee of the future - what were Ferguson?s stats for United in his first 6 seasons?
For anyone who thinks Moyes should have been sacked, I?d be interested to hear who you think his replacement could of been - bearing in mind we have no money to spend!
23 Posted 25/10/2008 at 15:43:35
Plenty of others have fallen by the wayside. Then there are the managers with fine records whose approach somehow wouldn’t transfer (Alardyce, Curbishley, ?Ramos, etc)
Given the kind of managers we’re likely to attract, change might well be a big risk. (Rednap went South I think because he knew there’d be a big transfer budget and he and his wife wanted to live by the sea, O’Neill because Lehrer offered him big things, Hughes was unproven when he started, etc).
So just suppose for a second that Moyes doesn’t deserve as many awards as he’s picked up. He’s still obviously been a class act. If we get tired of his preferred style of football or whatever and he gets the big "E", what are the chances that we’ll get a Mark Hughes and not a Sammy Lee or a Graeme Souness?
24 Posted 26/10/2008 at 12:01:11
25 Posted 26/10/2008 at 23:02:01
Even if Moyes is telling the back four to hoof it, you can't blame him... everytime they try to pass short they give it to the opposition. Most of the time our centre-halves couldn't find a man in a blue shirt if they were sat in the Street End. Safest thing is to tell them to hoof it!
26 Posted 27/10/2008 at 13:08:20
Probably because he?s really good at football and one of the more underrated players in the game.
27 Posted 27/10/2008 at 14:26:57
Eh? !!!
28 Posted 27/10/2008 at 15:25:04
re: on the floor, a handful of games?? At times it wasn?t, and 99% of this season it hasn?t been, but for half-two thirds of last season we played some great stuff on the deck; Osman, Pienaar, Arteta, Yak, etc.
29 Posted 31/10/2008 at 10:31:38
If you win 50% of your matches, but lose 40% you are not as good (in my opinion) as someone who wins 45% and draws 30%, only losing 25%!? That is why I think Keegan is rubbish!
30 Posted 31/10/2008 at 13:18:32
I'm not even sure I would want someone to come in and buy us for silly money. It?s too short term. I want to see what happens to the Chelseas when people start getting bored. Chelsea in the Championship in 5 years time? I will (maybe not happily but will) see it through.
31 Posted 31/10/2008 at 22:22:10
DM, if you read this, understand this club is one of the founder members of the league, the ORIGINAL team in the city of Liverpool, the team with the longest and greatest pedigree in this country, we boast the greatest centre-forward in the game's history, our support is the loyalist and most representative of its area anywhere, but mostly we are football supporters.
I was there when Ipswich hammered 4 in to us at Goodison and the ground rose in appreciation of the quality of their 4th goal. And the same when Joe Royle scored at the Street End for Norwich and when Alan Ball returned with Southampton to an ovation that so affected him he couldn?t concentrate on his game.
There are a handful of clubs who at any given moment could grab this league and rule it as though by birthright; if you don't know, this club is one of them. The greatest difference between us and Liverpool is the faith that winning and decent football do not have to be mutually exclusive.
I travel around the country and you will always find Evertonians hidden away all over the place, of course the lack of silverware irks but it is how we play that kills us. Remove the shackles, dare to play, let the School of Science re open, give to us a GOLDEN VISION.
32 Posted 05/11/2008 at 14:03:01
Add Your Comments
In order to post a comment, you need to be logged in as a registered user of the site.
Or Sign up as a ToffeeWeb Member — it's free, takes just a few minutes and will allow you to post your comments on articles and Talking Points submissions across the site.
2 Posted 24/10/2008 at 15:19:14
However bit harsh I feel on the style of play, when fit and one their game this team does play some cracking stuff, lest we not forget some of nights in europe and the way we battered teams at times last year. We just dont have the bodies to sustain it when the going gets tough over the course of a season (ran out of steam last year) or if we have bad luck with personell being available (like the start of this year and last year)
Stats would no doubt back up that we win more when we have a fit team and when we win more we are more confident and therefore we play some of that good "on the floor type stuff" that we saw last year.
I know we aint arsenal but it isnt all that bad.