We are often more certain than the evidence really allows.
More quotesMonday morning: the manager leaves through a side gate. Tuesday: the new man moves training forward an hour and bans phones at lunch. Saturday: the striker scores from twenty yards. By Sunday, a television panel has located the turnaround in discipline, belief, standards, body language and the sacred rediscovery of the shirt.
The timing flatters the story. Clubs sack managers after unusually poor runs, exactly when ordinary variation makes improvement more likely. Bas Ter Weel found nearly the same fall and recovery among Dutch clubs that kept their managers. No dramatic appointment was available to receive credit, so the movement looked like what it was: results moving away from an extreme patch.
Television prefers the account with a person at its centre. A new manager supplies photographs, quotations and visible changes. A return towards the players’ previous scoring rate supplies little for the touchscreen. A draw after five defeats becomes evidence that the dressing room has been won back. Two victories turn a revised training schedule into a philosophy.
Sackings change staff, require contracts to be paid, alter tactics and give players different instructions. Measuring their effect requires more than a comparison between the worst few weeks of one tenure and the first few weeks of another. Similar clubs at similar low points, including the ones that changed nobody, supply the necessary comparison. The estimated improvement becomes smaller once that group is included.