By David Butler

The 2017 winter transfer window closes next Tuesday, January 31 at 11pm. The common argument is that January is a bad time to do business for clubs. This could be due to their weakened bargaining power. Clubs with  clear ambitions are often in the market for new talent. Avoiding relegation or achieving a top 4 spot for instance might attach a premium to a player.

While elite Premier League clubs can do business in January, usually this window provides struggling ones an opportunity to bring in new players to face a potential relegation battle. The quick analysis below provides an overview of the last four winter windows for the bottom five clubs at this stage of the season (after 22 matches). I’m assuming that these are the clubs most likely to search for new talent in an effort to avoid relegation.

Given the complexity of modern transfers and the fact that many fees are undisclosed, I don’t go into specific net spends in January. The loan move is the most popular choice of transfer for these struggling clubs. Perhaps contrary to popular belief, the majority of transfers the lower end clubs engage in during the winter window are outward ones. They commonly ship fringe and reserve team players out on loans to lower league clubs.  Also, I'm sure resources have to be freed up before any potential target can be acquired.

Bringing in a host of new faces doesn’t seem to be a silver bullet for clubs stuck in the relegation fight.  That said, there doesn't seem to be any clear relationship here as often when clubs do very little inward business they also go on to be relegated. Maybe an investment threshold exists, both in terms of transfer spend and the capacity to pay more wages. Reaching this level might be out of many clubs reach however.

2015-2016
Last season, almost resigned to relegation, Aston Villa did very little business in January. Sunderland brought in Kirchhoff, N'Doye and Kone. They just survived relegation. Newcastle’s inward business of Saivet, Townsend, Doumbia (loan) wasn’t enough to save them. Despite bringing in many new faces in January, Norwich were still relegated. The Canaries brought in a range of players including Bamford (loan), Grabban, Klose, Naismith and Jarvis.

2014-2015
Very few January inward moves occurred. Sunderland notably brought in Defoe, which probably helped them survive. Burnley (Keane), Hull (Luer) and QPR (Zarate) only brought in one player each and were all relegated.  At this stage of 14/15 Leicester were bottom of the table, they did three pieces of inward business in January and survived, Schwarzer (free), Smith (loan) and Kramarić.

2013-2014
13/14 was the most active of recent years for struggling clubs. Fulham brought in no less then seen players but it wasn’t enough to avoid relegation; Dempsey (loan), Kvist (loan), Cole (loan), Heitinga (free), Holtby (loan), Mitroglou, Tunnicliffe. West Ham brought in six; Gordon, Johnson (loan), Borriello (loan), Nocerino (loan), Razak, Armero (loan). Cardiff were bottom at the time and remained bottom, they only brought in one player Wolff Eikrem.

2012-2013
Wigan spent no money bringing in Henríquez (loan), Espinoza (free), Robles (free) and Scharner (loan) but were relegated. Aston Villa did very little business but survived.  Despite buying  Loïc Remy, QPR still finished bottom. Reading brought in four players ( Carriço,, Akpan, Kelly, Blackman) but it wasn't enough to keep them up.

By Robbie Butler

I thought it was interesting that Chelsea recently decided to recall on-loan defender Nathan Aké from Bournemouth. The Dutch international joined the south coast club in August and has put in a string of excellent performances for Eddie Howe’s team, including scoring three goals. The most notable of these was his last minute winner against Liverpool in Bournemouth’s dramatic 4-3 win.

This goal could prove to be important to Chelsea, as it denied rivals Liverpool a point. Another influential player in the team that day was Arsenal’s on-loan midfielder Jack Wiltshere who played a full ninety minutes. Wilshere has played 70 minutes or more in 12 of Bournemouth’s last 15 games. The only two games he did not appear were home and away to his parent club Arsenal.

Is this inter-league loan system fair? Effectively, clubs can loan out agents to compete against rival teams, who are then prevented from playing against their parent club. While Liverpool suffered at the hands of Aké, they too have an inter-league loan, with Jon Flanagan currently a member of the Burnley squad.

​Consider data from the Premier League, I believe there have been 11 inter-league loans this season so far. The table to the right presents these.In the past, this was not permitted. The rules have changed and bigger clubs are using this to their benefit. 

​Due to possible conflict of interest, it is  hard to see how a player could play against their parent club. Thibaut Courtois's appearance in a Champions League semi-final being an obvious exception. Most players today don't celebrate goals scored against ex-clubs.

Whether or not it is fair is open to debate. I think the spirit of the game would be better served by loaning players to other divisions within the Football League or other countries.

By John Eakins

Last Sunday night one of the classic NFL (American Football) play off games took place between the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys. The Green Bay Packers lead for most of the game but a last quarter comeback from the Cowboys saw them tie the game at 28 apiece with a little over 4 minutes left. The next drive from the Packers saw them retake the lead with a field goal only for the Cowboys to tie the game once again with their own field goal. At this point there were only 44 seconds left and the game was heading towards overtime. The next couple of plays and particularly the 36 yard pass from Aaron Rodgers to Jared Cook on a 3rd and 20 has already become the stuff of legend.

That play left Mason Crosby, the Green Bay Packers kicker, with a 51 yard field goal to win the game with the last play. However Jason Garrett, head coach of the Dallas Cowboys had one last option open to him. Just before the snap for the field goal he called a timeout, a tactic which is commonly referred to as ‘icing the kicker’. Because the timeout is called effectively simultaneously with the snap, the snap takes place and the kicker attempts the kick. Crosby made the first attempt quite easily but would have to do it again. Crosby stepped up to the plate however and made the second attempt albeit with a little less to spare as it flew just inside the left hand post.

One interesting question that arises out of this is whether ‘icing the kicker’ actually works. In their book Scorecasting, Tobias J. Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim analysed these types of pressure kicks while controlling for the distance of the field-goal attempt. They found little evidence to suggest that that icing the kicker produces the desired effect – kickers kick around the same percentages whether they were iced or not. In fact, in some cases, they found that it can benefit the kicker. A short video by the team at Freakonomics provides a nice overview of the issue.

The video also outlines reasons why a coach would employ this tactic when its success is debatable. Ultimately it comes down to the fact that the negative payoffs to the coach are weighted more heavily if they do not ice the kicker. One could use game theory terminology here and say that icing the kicker is a dominant strategy to coaches especially for important field goal attempts. Even if the kicker gets the kick having been iced, it is still a better outcome than not icing and the kicker being successful. There is one caveat to the last sentence. It is possible that the kicker, having being iced, misses the first kick but gets the second. If this were to happen often enough, I suspect icing would become employed less frequently.  

By Robbie Butler

FIFA recently announced that the World Cup Finals will be expanding from 32 teams to 48 for the 2026 World Cup. This decision has been largely criticised. Fears of diluting the quality and player burn-out are commonly cited as reasons to oppose the move.

From the organiser’s perspective, the World Cup is big business. Broadcasting revenue alone from the most recent tournament in Brazil was worth $2.4 billion. In total, FIFA made a profit of approximately $2.6 billion from the 2014 tournament. Expanding the tournament seems like a no-brainer.
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There is another reason to expand the competition, which has been rather overlooked. There are many more national associations now than there were even twenty years ago.

​A historical analysis of previous World Cup qualifications can help understand the evolution toward greater numbers of national associations. Starting in 1934 (the inaugural tournament in 1930 was invitation only), 1 out of 2 countries entering the qualification stage reached the Finals in Italy. This ratio has never been topped. The graph below plots the number of entrants, number of team qualifying (left-hand axis) and the percentage of countries qualifying (right-hand axis) from 1934 to 2026 (assuming the number of associations remains at 210 for the 2022 and 2026 tournaments). 

The expansion to 48 countries means just over one-fifth of all entrants will reach the finals. The 1982 expansion to 24 teams, and the 1998 expansion to 32, were outpaced by the rapid increase in associations, particularly in UEFA following the collapse of the Soviet Union and break-up of Yugoslavia.
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Consider the UEFA confederation alone is worthwhile.

From a European perspective, an increase in the number of UEFA places must be a priority. The second graph below shows just how hard it has become to qualify for the World Cup as a UEFA member, with just 13 places for 54 countries trying to get to Russia 2018. This compares very poorly to the 13 spots available for Italia ’90 when just 33 countries entered the qualification phase. 

Almost 40% of UEFA countries entering the qualification stage reached the finals in 1990. With an identical number of places, just 24% of associations will be at Russia next year. ​Commentators can criticise the move, but let us not ignore the explosion in the number of FIFA and UEFA members. 

 By David Butler

The Christmas period saw three struggling Premier League clubs part company with their manager. Alan Pardew, Bob Bradley and Mike Phelan were all sacked. On top of that Gary Rowett, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Gary Caldwell and Walter Zenga were also relieved of their duties in the Championship. This is a topic that often crops up around this time of year.

While pre-season is the most common time for managerial departures in English football, performing well in the first half of the season seems key to hanging on to a managerial post. Failing to perform in earlier rounds of the football calendar appears to create panic for owners.

The timing of a sacking appears important to owners for two general reasons.  On the pitch, a replacement manager needs  time to turn things around and put his stamp on a new team in terms of playing style and strategy. Off the pitch, owners face the difficult decision of trusting an apparently under-performing manager through the January transfer window. If owners are investing significant resources in playing talent during the January window, in an effort to avoid relegation, they may not have faith in the incumbent. They may prefer to give a fresh face the resources if they believe the current set-up squandered a transfer kitty in the previous window(s).

Looking at the last number of seasons, six out of the nine managers sacked during the 2013/14 campaign (‘mutual consent’ is considered sacking) were released between 1st of December and the 14th of February. Five out of six sackings occurred between the 27th of December and the 11th of February in the 2014/15 season. Last season was somewhat different with only Gary Monk and Jose Mourinho sacked in December. Newcastle and Aston Villa let Steve McLaren and Remi Garde go in March but it proved too late. This season Francesco Guidolin only reached the 3rd of October, while Pardew, Bradley and Phelan were all let go in December and January respectively.

But does changing the manager matter? Some of the most recent evidence suggests that firing a coach can generate improved performances but that the effects differ across leagues. Sacking may not be as trivial as the media suggests. A slight increase in points can be accrued, whether this is enough to avoid relegation is another matter.