Replacing Wenger

Should Arsene Wenger go? If so who should replace him? In considering these questions we must remember three important economic principles.

One is that in hiring someone what matters is putting round pegs into round holes. Productivity often results not from the intrinsic quality of a worker, but from the match between his skills and the job. What matters is getting the right man for the job, not necessarily the best.

Boris Groysberg has shown this (pdf). He looked at 20 former managers of General Electric – a company with a reputation for producing good bosses – who moved to senior positions in other firms. He found that their performance varied enormously even though all 20 had similarly impressive CVs.

This variance occurred because the matches differed. Hiring a cost-cutter, for example, is a good idea for a firm facing stiff price competition in a mature industry. But it’s a bad idea if yours is a fast-growing newer firm. And conversely, a man whose good at managing growth won’t fit into a mature firm.

What Arsenal must ask, therefore, is two questions. First, what precisely is the problem we want to solve? And second, who has the skill-set to do so?

The problem seems to be one of mentality: how to ensure that good players don’t collectively under-perform in big games. Also, we’d like someone who’s good at managing up – who can get money and competence in the transfer market out of an “absentee owner with no knowledge or interest in football” and a board which has been occasionally clueless.

So, who fits this bill? There are few stand-out candidates. There’s nothing in the CVs of Eddie Howe, Thomas Tuchel or Ronald Koeman to suggest they are capable of taking a team from the top four to the top one. Yes, Diego Simeone or Max Allegri have a proven record to suggest they could do so – but the former at least would entail a massive and therefore risky cultural change at the club.

But here’s a problem. A CV tells us what a man has done – which might of course be just “got lucky”. It doesn’t necessarily tell us what he can do.

Which brings me to the second principle: nobody knows anything. Success is to a large extent unpredictable. This is as true in football management as business.  For example, Sir Alex Ferguson was on the brink of the sack in 1990, and Bill Shankly failed to get Liverpool promoted in his first two seasons on charge – something which would get a boss the boot in our more demanding times.  Nobody then foresaw their great achievements – just as nobody’s reaction to Claudio Ranieri’s appointment at Leicester was “this guy will take them to a league title”.

The converse, of course, is also true. Countless managers have failed to live up to fans’ or board’s hopes, even at the minority of clubs that aren’t run by egomaniacs or idiots: David Moyes and Louis van Gaal were both the right man for Manyoo once.

So, what can we expect of a new Arsenal boss?

Here’s my third principle: perhaps not much. We’ve got reasonable evidence (pdf) from top European leagues that changing manager does not in fact make much difference on average. This is perhaps consistent with the fact that any organization’s success often depends more upon organizational capital than upon single individuals. For example, some teams will always be near the top, and others won’t: last season was an outlier in this respect.

Maybe Great Men can make a difference. But the thing about Great Men is that they are very rare.

I guess the only point I’m making here for Arsenal fans is: don’t get your hopes up.

Comments

[Dave Timoney]

There is of course a risk in changing manager after a 20-year incumbency, however Arsenal will have to do it at some point (Arsene isn't immortal) so it makes sense to grasp the nettle at a time when the club's structural advantages (increased revenue, some promising youth) may offset the cost of change.

The window of opportunity has been open since 2014. Had it not been for the two FA Cup wins, and the belief that these heralded a step-change, I suspect Arsene would have called time a couple of seasons ago. Arguably, our failure to finish above Leicester last year (despite beating them home and away) was the decisive moment. Ironically, this was obscured by the hilarity of Spurs screwing up.

I suspect most Arsenal fans have now come around to the view that a season of turmoil (not qualifying for the CL, finishing behind Spurs) would be worthwhile if the club then met the expectations associated with its current capabilities, i.e. that the 5th richest club in the world should at least make the CL last 8, rather than always going out in the round of 16, and should be able to challenge for the Premiership until April most years.

Wenger's place in history is assured, not just the history of Arsenal or English Football but of the global game, however his time has passed. His insistence on playing the last pure number 10, on crafting a team out of unusual individual talents, and of wanting to win more than to avoid losing, is beautiful but quixotic, showing the formative impression that Platini's France of 1984 had on him (he started his managerial career at Nancy in the same year).

Change is gonna come.

[AndrewD]

As a non-arsenal supporter I think he should stay, as Napoleon said "do not disturb your enemy when he is making a mistake"

[Billy H]

It's the wrong shaped ball for me and I have little time for football, but by any standard, 20 years in a highly pressurised job is an awfully long time. There cannot be many who have held senior management/coaching roles at one club, or in the sporting world in general, for that kind of period.
Doesn't there come a time when the energy levels dip, where the desire isn't quite what it used to be and the message doesn't carry the same conviction?
Wenger's tenure has been extraordinary but he's probably just come to the end of the road.

[Andrew S.]

Even if Great Men are rare, they do exist (Sir Alex springs to mind, of course); and a club of Arsenal's stature can't be seen to not hire someone of the best credentials - if they appointed a nobody and he failed the club's directors would be much more vilified than if they hired the best manager available. Even though Moyes and van Gaal did not crack the code at Man U, nobody could accuse them of not being qualified...

[Doug]

'Even though Moyes and van Gaal did not crack the code at Man U, nobody could accuse them of not being qualified...'

Van Gaal had won stuff but Moyse was a gamble. By common consent he had Everton punching above their weight on restricted resources but he had no championships or trophies to show for it.

Good to see the deeply unpleasant, misanthropic narcissist in charge now hasn't cracked the code either.

[reason]

"One is that in hiring someone what matters is putting round pegs into round holes. Productivity often results not from the intrinsic quality of a worker, but from the match between his skills and the job."

On the other hand you could adjust the shape the hole to fit the shape of the peg. Some managers seem to do this with players for instance (adjusting the system according to the players available), others not (they play the transfer market to find players to suit their system). It seems a skill more essential to managers of national football teams - especially those not quite at the very top in terms of available talent.

Clubs with lots of money available can do it either way. But I would have thought if a club really wanted a long term solution, then molding the club to the vision of the manager was the way to go.