By John Considine

In a previous post I suggested that La Vuelta 2022 provided some good examples to illustrate basic economics.  For example, I suggested that the individual time trial provides a good illustration of an optimisation problem.  The outcome of the ITT is an approximation of the individual abilities of the contestants.  It is only an approximation because not all contestants might have given full effort due to other consideration.  The contestant with the slowest time in the graph below (Danny Van Poppel) might have been saving himself for an attempt at a sprint victory later in the race given that his duties as lead-out to Sam Bennett ended before the individual time trial started.  The range of finishing times behind the stage winner are presented in the bar-chart below.

Riders are not allowed to draft (free-ride) in an individual time trial.  This helps explain a large share of the difference in times.  It is worth comparing the individual time trial with the team time trial.  In the team time trial, cyclists behave like migrating birds.  They share the time spent carrying the burden of riding on the front while allowing teammates to free-ride in their slipstream.  The objective is to get the fifth man in the team across the line in the quickest possible time.  Another optimisation problem with an element of a coordination thrown in.  The bar chart below presents the finishing times.  The bars with more than 4 riders are ones where a team has finished.  The two highest bars represent situations where two teams finished with the same time.

The riders that finished on their own are situations where these riders gave everything before leaving it to the rest of the team to finish the job.  A bit like booster rockets.  Many teams opt for such a strategy - although it might be noted that the winning team finished will all members crossing the line "together".

There is more grouping in the finishing times in the team time trial than in the individual time trial.  Now consider the situation where there are no rules against drafting (free-riding).  Battling the wind makes it an optimal strategy.  Again it is worth looking at the outcome data and comparing stages.  Stage 1 above was the team time trial.  Stage 2 was a regular stage.  It was a relatively flat stage.  Below is a bar chart indicating the time gaps behind the winner in Stage 2.  Almost 140 riders got the same time as the stage winner.

The wind is what makes drafting a good strategy.  The advantage to drafting declines as the speed drops.  This happens when riders have to climb.  As the difficulty of the climb increases then it is weight, as well as wind, that is the rider's enemy.  Stage 14 presented the riders with plenty of climbing difficulty.  Such a stage separates the riders as the bar chart below illustrates.

The two large spikes in the above bar-chart are riders who probably decided to survive the day and benefit from the drafting and psychological benefits of being in a group.

What made the 2022 version of La Vuelta different from the Tour de France and the Giro D'Italia is the inclusion of the individual time trial.

By Daragh O'Leary

The word rebuild is tossed around constantly in modern football. This makes sense given that long enough has passed in Premier League history for former giants to have fallen low enough to need one.
 
Manchester United are the current club which pundits and fans are saying need a top-to-bottom overhaul. United are still the most successful Premier League team ever with 13 titles to their name, but the Red Devils are now nearly 10 years without a title. While their recent victories over Liverpool and Arsenal would have given fans a much-needed boost, the most recent Manchester derby was a powerful reminder that there is still work to do before they get back to their best.
 
With this in mind, I thought it would be a good idea to use a little economic theory to try and argue what United fans should be expecting from this season. My message to them is that 8th place would not be a terrible finish. Let me explain.
 
Economic theory relating to the firm constantly discusses the importance of efficiency and resource accumulation to increase growth. The industrial view of the firm states that efficiency is learned over time through ‘noisy signals’ and that young firms will often suffer from ‘liabilities of newness’. Given time, firms learn how to operate efficiently, acquire more resources, perfect their routines, and learn industry specific knowledge. A football club rebuilding is no different.
 
When Jurgen Klopp took over from Brendan Rogers at Liverpool he performed worse in his first season than Rogers did in his final full season taking the Reds from 6th place to 8th place. His first ever back four consisted of Alberto Moreno (LB), Mamadou Sakho (LCB), Martin Škrtel (RCB), and Nathaniel Clyne (RB). While these players helped Liverpool mount a title charge 2 years before against City, they were completely ill-equipped to play the gegenpressing style of football Klopp wanted to play. As a result, Liverpool didn’t perform well and won just 42% of their league games. This process was essential for Liverpool’s future success.
 
The evident inability of the back four to perform to the level that Klopp wanted led to the identification of inefficiencies and the acquiring of fit-for-purpose resources which would solve these issues. Very similar parallels can be drawn between this and Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal who also finished 8th in Arteta’s first season.
 
Arteta’s Gunners also missed out on top 4 last year when the dismissal of their centre forward along with injuries to their first-choice full backs and centre defensive midfielder produced a poor run of results handing the top 4 spot to their North-London rivals. It is no coincidence that this season Arteta has identified new full backs who can invert and help out in midfield as well as a new centre forward to replace the exiled Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. This has subsequently led them to the top of the Premier League table at the time of writing.
 
Here we can see that inefficiencies were a necessary process to signal the need for new resources in specific areas to improve Liverpool and Arsenal. Meaning it could be the case that this year United will experience growing pains and perform worse than last season where they finished 6th. Erik ten Hag’s project may take 2 or 3 more years before it will finally bear fruit and take the club back to where it once was. This ‘growing pain’ period is not a nasty precursor to the rebuild, it is the rebuild. Losses are painful, but they highlight inefficiencies which can then be addressed with specific resources. All in all, if you want to rebuild something you need to first accept dismantling it.