Wages bill determines league fortunes of clubs in English premiership, say experts

Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-23 16:50:38|Editor: ying
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LONDON, May 23 (Xinhua) -- Do the skills of a playing squad determine the league table fortunes of clubs in the famous English Premiership? Research published Monday shows the best indicator of where a team finishes in the table is its wage bill.

Sports experts at the University of Salford carried out an end-of-season analysis showing the critical part of a so called twelfth man: the wages bill.

With the Premiership's final round of games now completed and Chelsea crowned as League Champions, academics at the university's Center for Sports Business have crunched the numbers for the 2016-17 season.

Experts found that Eddie Howe's Bournemouth performed the highest above expectations, while David Moyes' and Sunderland were the worst performers.

Chris Brady, the center's director, noted the unique strucutre of the EPL in explaining the result. "While tiny margins can affect the final league positions of EPL teams, the reality is the EPL is effectively three mini-leagues, by wage bill, the top six, the middle seven and the bottom seven," he pointed out.

"Only two clubs, Sunderland and Bournemouth, for entirely different reasons, managed to finish outside of their mini-league. Sunderland finished 10 places below that of their expected position by wage bill and Bournemouth finished eight places above there predicted position," he continued.

The team at Salford found that, when ranking managers/head coaches by their ability to finish above their wage position, Eddie Howe (+8), Claude Puel (+5), Mauricio Pochettino (+4); Sean Dyche (+3) were the top four performers.

Others worthy of mention include mid-season appointees Craig Shakespeare and Sam Allardyce. When Claudio Ranieri was sacked in week 25 of the season, Leicester were in a -7 position and Shakespeare managed to pull them up six positions to only the -1 level, finishing 12th on the 11th highest wages. Palace were -4 when Allardyce took over and finished +1, a movement of 5 places.

The worst performer was David Moyes' Sunderland with a -10 finish. Other poor showings were the Watford manager, Walter Mazzarri, who took Watford from a +6 position in week 25 to a (-1) position at the finish, Mark Hughes with a -4 finish. Even the "Special One" Jose Mourinho cannot avoid reprimand with a -4 finish for Manchester United.

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