By Stephen Brosnan

This post explores the relationship between Premier League club’s spending on both salaries and transfers and the number of points won during the current Premier League season.

Since 2015, Man United have had the highest annual player salaries amongst Premier League clubs. This year total salary paid out to players at Old Trafford topped £148 million. This includes the Premier Leagues top earner Alexis Sanchez, often founding warming up the United bench while picking up a hefty £315,000 p/w.

Cardiff City have the lowest wage bill in the Premier League this season. The newly promoted Bluebirds remained conservative in their approach to top flight survival. Cardiff’s summer transfer spending (£29m) was a fraction of the other promoted team’s spending. Fulham spent a hefty £105m during the summer while Wolves brought in £65m worth of talent. Only Tottenham (£0), Crystal Palace (£9.5m) and Newcastle (£23.2m) spent less than Cardiff last summer.

The question remains who have been the most efficient club in terms of spending on annual salaries? The figure below shows Premier League team’s total points and spending on salaries. 

All the teams above the line can be considered ‘efficient’. Wolves rank first for points per £m spent on player’s salaries. So far this season, Wolves have accumulated 40 points in the Premier League having spent £39 million on player’s salaries. This represents 1.02 points per million pounds spent on player’s salaries. Other ‘efficient’ teams include Manchester City, Liverpool, Tottenham, Watford and Brighton.

Manchester United are the most inefficient team in terms of points per £ spent on player’s salaries. The team has only won 0.37 points per million pounds spent on player’s salaries. This may be surprising given their recent form under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer but also may go a long way in explaining why they replaced former manager Jose Mourinho.
​
The other ‘inefficient’ teams include relegation candidates Huddersfield and Fulham along with Southampton, Crystal Palace, Everton, Leicester and West Ham. Over half of these teams have changed manager throughout the season which suggests that the team’s inefficiencies were no secret. Meanwhile, none of the managers of the ten ‘efficient’ teams have lost their jobs. 

By Stephen Brosnan

Previously, I have written about the effect of star players on team performance in the Premier League. The piece identifies the usefulness of Collis and Montgomery’s resource-based view of the firm (RBV) in explaining the impact of ‘star’ players on team competitiveness. RBV explains how a firm’s resources drive its performance in a dynamic competitive environment. In a sporting context, team performance may be driven by a key resource e.g. star player. However, given the risk of injury, suspension, fatigue and loss of form over the course of the season, the over reliance of a team on the contribution of one ‘star’ player can significantly impact their long-term competitiveness.

Table 1 highlights the contribution of each Premier League clubs ‘star’ player during the current season. The players selected have amassed the highest number of Fantasy Premier League (FPL) points for their respective clubs. The analysis considers the percentage of team’s goals in which the player was involved in, the points lost in the absence of this contribution and the players contribution to the team’s Premier League points total. 

Three team’s leading FPL points scorer are their goalkeepers: Neil Etheridge (Cardiff), Jonas Lössl (Huddersfield) and Martin Dubravka (Newcastle). Given the reliance on goals and assists to determine the contribution of star players to team performance, this analysis is limited to outfield players only. Therefore, these players have been replaced with highest outfield FPL points scorer for this analysis.

Aleksandar Mitrovic has the highest overall contribution to his team’s outcomes, both in terms of contribution to goals scored and contribution to points accumulated. Mitrovic has been involved in over half of all Fulham’s goals (52%) and has contributed to 76% of all their points earned. Fulham’s (over)reliance on their talisman may be summed up by their failure to win any game in which Mitrovic has not scored and he has had to score two goals in three of these games to ensure victory: Burnley 4 – 2 (2 goals, 1 assist), Southampton 3 – 2 (2 goals), Huddersfield 1-0 (1 goal) and Brighton 4-2 (2 goals).

However, it appears not all goals are created equal as Glenn Murray has been involved in 35% of Brighton’s goals this season with these goals contributing to 41% of the team’s overall points. Meanwhile, Everton’s Gylfi Sigurdsson has been involved in a similar number of Everton’s goals (33%) but these goals have only contributed to 12% of the team’s overall points.
​
In the Premier League title race, Liverpool appear to be more reliant on their star man, Mo Salah, compared with rivals Man City and Tottenham. Salah has contributed to 31% of Liverpool’s points while Man City and Tottenham have been less reliant on their star players Sterling and Son (18%). Both these teams have already shown their ability to succeed with numerous injury problems e.g. Spurs winning every game since Harry Kane’s injury. Liverpool have yet to have significant injury setback and their ability to deal with potential injury or loss of form to Salah may go a long way to deciding the outcome of this season’s Premier League.