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A Gay Schoolboy

The "Second Season Syndrome" Myth

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Its season prediction time for most of the media at the moment, and in pretty much every Norwich one, the idea of a ''Second Season Syndrome'' is either explicitly or implicitly mentioned. There seems to be an idea that promoted teams that stay up in their first season, tend to struggle and get relegated in their second. As I had bugger all to do at work today, I decided to see if this is true.Of the 59 teams promoted in the Premier League era, 26 (44%) went straight back down, 23 (39%) avoided second season syndrome by staying up to play at least 3 seasons in the Prem, while only 7 (12%), got relegated in their second season. The remaining 5% is us, Swansea, and QPR, where it has yet to be determined.Of course its disingenuous to include the teams that went straight back down, as they never had an opportunity to fall foul of SSS, and the three teams who stayed up last year, so when you remove them you get: 77% avoided SSS, 23% got relegated in their second season.In fact, the mean average for time spent in the Prem once you''ve got over the first hurdle of staying up once, is 5.3 years, and this is a low estimate, as there are currently 10 teams promoted since 92 that are yet to be relegated.In conclusion: the media is full of shit, as usual. 

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Great post packed with common sense, reasoned argument and hard facts.It will of course be ignored by the "hoof it forward" knuckle draggers who seems to shout loudest on this board.

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That is actually quite interesting. I can see why the presumption about SSS would be made, as there are fairly logical and valid reasons as to why it would exist. Happy to see the stats shoot it down though!

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Interesting, any stats on how long it took on average for those that did go down in SSS to come back up? And is it typically the same teams that are rotating in and out?

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Same principle as small man syndrome. Whenever a small man loses their rag people say it is small man syndrome, whenever a tall man loses their rag height is not brought into it.By the same token, whenever a team in their second season struggles it is second season syndrome, whenever a team does well it is generally ignored.So yes, it is just a lazy media myth.

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Of the SSS teams (going from the Prem Years 92/93) - there have actually been 8 (for this excercise Im counting Oldham as 2 years of Prem football - cant remember if they were in the old D1):Oldham (92-94) never have made it backMiddlesboro (95-97) came back at the 1st attempt, followed by 11 seasons in the PremThe Binners (00-02) have never been back sinceNor have Bradford (99-01)nor Birmingham (09-11)West Brom suffered SSS following their 2nd Prem spell (04-06) had 2 years out, followed by a single season, back at the 1st attempt and stayed sinceReading are only just back following 06-08and Hull (08-10) have not been back since the dropSo 5 out of 8 have not made it back - although Birmingham and Hull are fairly recent and only WBA and Reading are Prem sides now....

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Are you not just getting confused with "second album syndrome" where a group''s second album is notably worse than its debut effort largely due to the pressure to write follow up hits quickly?  If you remember Busted!, or McFly, as my grand-daughter does, you''ll understand exactly what I mean.

 

It''s a bit like saying that Somalian fellow suffered from "second race syndrome" when he ran in the 5,000 metres last week.  It didn''t affect him and shouldn''t affect us.

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Its fair to say that the longer you stay in the Prem the more likely you are to stay up - which is why 2nd season teams are often tarred with the SSS brush (long-lived teams are often accepted as having greater strength in depth, which usually helps avoid that relegation scrap).  We''re favourites to go down - along with Swansea as Reading and Southampton have momentum, the Shammers are accepted as a usual Prem side (and are media darlings for some reason) and QPR have spent loads (though we all know that doesnt mean anything).  Swansea are tipped almost as much as us for the drop.Its also fair to say that football is cyclical and the odds are that we will be relegated again at some point.  Only 7 sides have never suffered relegation from Post 92 Premier League - Man UnitedVillaLiverpoolSpursArsenalChelseaand EvertonBased on the cyclical theory, expect at least one long-term side to struggle - of the above Villa are most likely unless they can keep everyone fit, but Wigan and Fulham are prime candidates to "do a Bolton" or "Blackburn" if they have a bit of duff form

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[quote user="Bor Bor Bor"]

Are you not just getting confused with "second album syndrome" where a group''s second album is notably worse than its debut effort largely due to the pressure to write follow up hits quickly?  If you remember Busted!, or McFly, as my grand-daughter does, you''ll understand exactly what I mean.

 

It''s a bit like saying that Somalian fellow suffered from "second race syndrome" when he ran in the 5,000 metres last week.  It didn''t affect him and shouldn''t affect us.

[/quote]No, it''s really nothing like that.  I also think you spelt "British" incorrectly.

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*Slight geek alert*without looking into the numbers myself, I suspect that if you had a much larger dataset of examples to draw on you would find that the probability of a team getting relegated following promotion to the Prem is highest following a single season, then next highest following the second season, and a bit lower after each season, eventually tending towards zero for an indefinite stay in the top division. From fairly shaky memories of A-level statistics (a long time ago - and congratulations, btw, to anyone getting their results today), I think this would be modeled in a graph by what is called a poisson distribution. So although the statistical probability of us getting relegated this season might not seem that high, it could nevertheless be the single most likely season for us to go down, now that we have successfully avoided relegation in our first season. Extrapolating with entirely made up numbers from the figures given by bumblefart above, the probability might look something like this:Relegated after first season: 44%after 2nd season: 12%after 3rd: 9%after 4th: 7%after 5th: 6%and so on.None of that takes into account changes in the team or other teams in the division or anything else, but if you were a lazy journalist then it wouldn''t be a bad guess to assume that at least one of Swansea, Norwich or QPR will go down this season - all other things being equal, a statistician would say there is a reasonable probability of that happening. Or at least if you were going to put a bet on which specific season we will get relegated, then the most likely one would be this season coming (and that would in fact be the case at any point in time).*end of geek bit*I don''t think we''ll go down though, and I haven''t seen much real analysis of our chances from the mainstream media which is, as always, irritating. So I share bumblefart''s frustration at lazy journalism, but think the SSS assumption might nevertheless have more foundation than suggested.

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My concern for this season is, last year Lambert rinsed every possible bit of performance out of his players. We might not have won every game but we competed in most of them, with some of the top top teams.

I''m aware that Lambert could be a real b******d if he wanted to, behind the scenes and I think this helped with the players really wanting to win for him.

So whilst I think second season syndrome is a bit of a myth, my concern is whether Hughton can have that same effect on players, or will he just be too easy going.

Time will tell, I know, and I''m glad Hughton is our manager, but I just hope the players are as desperate to win for Hughton as they were for Lambert.

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First I''ll deal with the individual teams giving the position they finished in the first season of their two, the number of points in both seasons and an explanation as to what could be considered a contributory factor.

Oldham (92-94) Don''t count (3 seasons)

Middlesboro (95-97) 12th - 43/39 - Points deduction for not playing a game

The Binners (00-02) 5th - 66/36 - Uefa Cup & changed the style of football

Reading (06-08) 8th - 55/36 - Lost their best players

Birmingham (09-11) 9th - 50/39 - financial Mess

Bradford (99-01) 17th - 36/26 - only just stayed up

West Brom (04-06) 17th - 34/30 - only just stayed up

Hull (08-10) 17th - 35/30 - only just stayed up

so there is clearly more than one reason (not a surprise there) but 3 teams went down because they couldn''t match their exploits of the previous seasons when they only just managed to stay up.

Two teams were in a mess middlesboro had a good team but had points taken away, brum were (and still are) in a financial mess.

The other two lost influential players and went from doing very well to very poorly.

So as far as Norwich are concerned they are not in a financial mess, haven''t been distracted by the UEFA cup (good thing too), didn''t "just" stay up (no squeaky bum time here) and haven''t lost influential players. Now the loss of PL may be important but we have replaced him with quality unlike the players that ipswich and reading lost because they couldn''t afford to replace them.

Swansea fall into the "lost influential players" bracket (I''m ignoring loss of the manager) they will struggle to achieve the same this season. Especially if they start shipping goals.

QPR fall into the "only just stayed up" bracket, but as much as I hate to admit it I think they will/have spent enough money to stay up comfortably. That said I think they''ll be a group of good players rather than "a team".

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People who talk about ‘Second Season Syndrome’ probably believe ‘you shouldn’t walk under ladders’ and ‘bad things always come in threes’ etc.

 

 It’s all fictitious nonsense!

 

Having said that, anyone who believes SSS to be true WILL find evidence of it somewhere as they simply won''t want to be proven wrong will they?

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The ''logic'' behind SSS works both ways, other teams know what to expect from us, but we know what to expect from them. We won''t give away 5 penalties in our first 6 games this year.

 

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[quote user="spudgfsh"]First I''ll deal with the individual teams giving the position they finished in the first season of their two, the number of points in both seasons and an explanation as to what could be considered a contributory factor. Oldham (92-94) Don''t count (3 seasons) Middlesboro (95-97) 12th - 43/39 - Points deduction for not playing a game The Binners (00-02) 5th - 66/36 - Uefa Cup & changed the style of football Reading (06-08) 8th - 55/36 - Lost their best players Birmingham (09-11) 9th - 50/39 - financial Mess Bradford (99-01) 17th - 36/26 - only just stayed up West Brom (04-06) 17th - 34/30 - only just stayed up Hull (08-10) 17th - 35/30 - only just stayed up so there is clearly more than one reason (not a surprise there) but 3 teams went down because they couldn''t match their exploits of the previous seasons when they only just managed to stay up. Two teams were in a mess middlesboro had a good team but had points taken away, brum were (and still are) in a financial mess. The other two lost influential players and went from doing very well to very poorly. So as far as Norwich are concerned they are not in a financial mess, haven''t been distracted by the UEFA cup (good thing too), didn''t "just" stay up (no squeaky bum time here) and haven''t lost influential players. Now the loss of PL may be important but we have replaced him with quality unlike the players that ipswich and reading lost because they couldn''t afford to replace them. Swansea fall into the "lost influential players" bracket (I''m ignoring loss of the manager) they will struggle to achieve the same this season. Especially if they start shipping goals. QPR fall into the "only just stayed up" bracket, but as much as I hate to admit it I think they will/have spent enough money to stay up comfortably. That said I think they''ll be a group of good players rather than "a team".[/quote]

I think you could also say that both Bradford and Ipswich signed he wrong players in their second seasons (Bradford also spent too much on the likes of Carbone) & broke up a successful team and presumably the team spirit too! Not sure on the Reading point either - can recall they lost Sidwell but did they lose anyone else? Birmingham also had a dramatic tail off in form after a League Cup win (sounds familar for some reason!!) and had a number of injuries, Scott Dann in particular missed a number of games.

Taking our Yellow & Green specs of, you can see why both ourselves and Swansea are amongst the favourites to go down. Both have lost their "bright young manager", Swansea are starting to lose some of their key players and have signed mainly foreign players and we remain a team of largely young & promising players with limited prem experience.

 

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