The price of "consistency"?

[Dubai Mark 0]

LDC has certainly mentioned this today and also several times previously I seem to remember.......CONSISTENCY.

Now, please everyone try and avoid this being yet another slag the current manager or even a sing the praises of the current manager session, because it would be interesting to know how much you think "consistency" would cost?

Why consistency? Well because it is clear that this is of course what every football team strives to achieve, week in week out consistent performances,yet very few do actually achieve it, plus of course we are curently supporting a side that is consistent in being inconsistent. If our team for example put together performances like they did at home to Spurs, Man City, Cardiff City and Sunderland and away at Stoke City every week, then we would probably be in the top six............but, unfortunately if every week we played like we did at Swansea and Southampton then we would probably now be stranded at the bottom of the league.

So, for the most part we have players who CAN certainly compete with the best, but not every week..........all a bit obvious I know.

Just how much would it cost and how many players would we need to become more consistent and, lets say consistent enough to  "challenge" regularly for a top 10 place, rather than battling in the lower half of the league......remembering of course that a team like Newcastle United are struggling to just that, and Spurs too to a certain degree,even having spent something like UKP 100 million. 

My guess is that, even to come close to being able to this it would take something like a minimum of 5 new first team players all of that level above what we have now.........the cost, well always difficult to judge because of salaries and other add-ons.....but my guess would be a cost of UKP 50 million.........just for starters, for one season, probably the same or similar the season after.....and just how do we do that?     

[Rogue Baboon 0]

Its an interesting point - look at Southampton for example. They spent close to 30million on Osvaldo and Wanyama (15mil and 12mil? Or i may have the wrong figures) yet the reason they have had such a good is season is because of players like Rodriguez, Lambert, Llalana and Shaw. All home grown players, Lambert and Rodriguez cost a combined 10million i think?

My point is, i don''t think you can buy consistency, its about finding the right balance of coaching and playing staff and playing to your strengths. Its something we do not do imo, hence why Hughton struggles to settle with a team week in week out. The team that was so good against Sunderland failed against Swansea so will probably be chopped and changed again.

Also, RVW made several good runs into the box against Sunderland in the first half, at least 3 i can recall, instead the player with the ball completely ignored him and tried something else - he may have missed chances, but he could have had several simple balls slipped through as well leaving him 1on1 with the keeper. So instead, Hooper will probably start against west brom so the players will take time trying to find their feet again in a new system.

That leads me back onto Southampton. The Lambert/Rodriguez/Llalana combination reminds me of our Holt/Martin/Hoolahan front 3 back in league 1. They played virtually the whole season together and just seemed to click everytime. There was no glory grabbing, they would be fully aware of each others position and that in turn would lead to goals. Its the consistency of a settled team that would lead to more consistent results imo.

So after all that, i don''t think you can buy consistency (even ozil at 42mil is inconsistent) its something that needs to be bread from within imo. At the minute, we don''t have a settled starting line up so the players cant breed that consistency

 

[LostTheFaith 0]

I have to disagree.

You pay a lot of money for players with guaranteed consistency . You need a lot of luck when you spend what we call lots of Money.

Every other match we have 3 or 4 players who show their lack of consistancy and mainly away . As has been said before we need to buy 5 or more better players and hope a couple of them are consistant !

[Rogue Baboon 0]

As i said, Ozil is inconsistent at 42mil

Carlo Ancelotti has even said himself this week that Gareth Bale is inconsistent- that''s 85mil

Neymar has been inconsistent for Barca, that''s nearly 100mil (if you believe the Spanish authorities)

The only players to guarantee consistency are the Scott Parkers, Gareth Barrys and James Milners of this world. No price could be put on consistency

[Badger 2,405]

If I were a facetious person, I would say that consistency is quite easy to achieve - indeed, our away form has been remarkably consistent recently! If you wished to guarantee consistently poor results the best way to achieve it is to have a low wage bill. My understanding is that there is a close correlation between final league position and the amount spent on wages, so the reverse also applies.

[The Butler 0]

[quote user=" Badger"]If I were a facetious person, I would say that consistency is quite easy to achieve - indeed, our away form has been remarkably consistent recently! If you wished to guarantee consistently poor results the best way to achieve it is to have a low wage bill.

My understanding is that there is a close correlation between final league position and the amount spent on wages, so the reverse also applies.
[/quote]

I understand but struggle with that argument.

Does the management team have no infuence?

Do tactics, training, formations,etc have no bearing on results?

What about substitutions, plans B,C etc

Half time team talks, confidence building, continued EXTRA practice.

All the things that can make that spark of difference to the final outcome of a game.

Yes money will buy the players BUT without the right direction that money  spent is worthless

[lake district canary 4,531]

Imo you set the standard, achieve it, then once having set the standard, strive to reach those standards again and again.   If you fall below that standard too often, then you are minded to lose a bit of confidence until you reach those standards again.    The home and away contrast that we have at the moment is frustrating, but understandable to the extent we failed to win matches away when we were on top, so when we lose a couple more after that it looks really bleak.   But it would take one good away performance/win/draw to put that feeling to one side.   The trick is to take the confidence from home games on to away games, but as other teams are up for it when we visit them as they know we are vulnerable away, it  becomes easier said than done.     So the consistency across home and away is difficult to do.   But - and Hughton has shown this before - when the chips are really down,  he and the players pull out the results - because deep down they have those high standards still there. 

We have seen some terrific performances this season - and it is surely the aim of the manager and players to reach those standards  every week.  Consistency will come imo with continuity and gradual development.  The standards have been set - it is up to the players to maintain them, the manager to get the balance right and the club to pay for new players to enable that consistency to be achieved.   

[It's Character Forming 1,160]

The link between wages and league position is that it is about an 80% correlation between league position and wages.

Now this does not prove anything - stats can never "prove" anything beyond doubt.  But intuitively it is obvious that higher wages lets you get better players which is likely to improve the team''s performance so this correlation is plausible to show that wages are a high factor in deciding your league position.

 

QPR last season were a good example of the fact that if you spend money on wages unwisely, you can finish much lower down than the general linke between wages and league position would suggest.  And equally for the last 3 seasons we have finished higher than our wage bill would predict.

[Salopian 1]

The players are human beings, and once or twice when we have gone a goal down their heads have dropped, whether through disappointment or fear that the "away game" has struck again, with no way back. Have we yet won after going a goal down away from home over the past two seasons?

So why does the manager''s pep talk not survive after going a goal down? Do they forget it, or were they not really convinced in the first place or are they not really bothered? (I assumed that professional pride and job security would be enough, but apparently not. I was rather worried when Bassong was quoted as saying that he can''t wait for the end of the season.) They may be battle-weary now, but that doesn''t explain poor games earlier in the season.

Does it boil down to confidence, or a lack of it. Our supporters can urge them to try things at home, but this doesn''t work away from home?

Ferguson certainly produced a consistently good performance for ManUre, home and away. Was it just respect for him, which drove them on, or was it because he could be angry and brutal, and this is what our manager lacks in his character?

Whatever the reason, if we are to progress, somehow we need to be more effective away. Even when we have played well away, our lack of goal power let us down, which is stating that not all sections of the team were playing well.

[Reggie Strayshun 0]

[quote user="Salopian"]

Ferguson certainly produced a consistently good performance for ManUre, home and away. Was it just respect for him, which drove them on, or was it because he could be angry and brutal, [/quote]Don''t disagree with that, Salopian, but it does to tend to point to the manager having a large influence. The core squad that Moyes has had is basically the same as Fergie did. But MU''s results and performances under Moyes have been far more inconsistent under Moyes than SAF.

[nutty nigel 7,509]

[quote user="The Butler"]

[quote user=" Badger"]If I were a facetious person, I would say that consistency is quite easy to achieve - indeed, our away form has been remarkably consistent recently! If you wished to guarantee consistently poor results the best way to achieve it is to have a low wage bill. My understanding is that there is a close correlation between final league position and the amount spent on wages, so the reverse also applies.[/quote]

I understand but struggle with that argument.

Does the management team have no infuence?

Do tactics, training, formations,etc have no bearing on results?

What about substitutions, plans B,C etc

Half time team talks, confidence building, continued EXTRA practice.

All the things that can make that spark of difference to the final outcome of a game.

Yes money will buy the players BUT without the right direction that money  spent is worthless

[/quote]

 

I agree. The table will in general correspond with the player budgets. But there will be anomolies. I can think of a few off the top of my head. A manager getting more value than expected from players. Consistently making value for money signings. Having quality home grown players in the first team. Which of these do you reckon helped us to over achieve last season?

 

 

[Badger 2,405]

A genuine question ICF, I do know the answer  but is this 80% correlation for any given season or over time? My suspicion is that over time might prove stronger even than this. Over time, performance blips will even out (regress to the mean) so that last year, for example, WBA were well over where they might be expected to be and that this year has "compensated" for this blip producing something nearer an expected position. We see the same this year with Man U. Over time these over and under performances "even out."It is also worth noting that an 80% correlation is strong but a long way short of perfect. The 20% is accounted for by factors like tactics, manager, individual players and other short-term factors which can have a temporary marginal effect. It begs for example the question of where Norwich might be this season if SAF had quit Man U and joined us with the same budget?It is horrible to be this reductive but over time we have a pretty good idea of where we will be in the pecking order - bottom third of Premier to top third of 1st Division is our "natural position." Our best chance of changing this is to increase our revenue in the medium term, through steady reinvestment of current riches into wealth building activities that generate further revenue which will ultimately make us less reliant upon TV revenues. Shame we sold the land really!Unlike Robert Chase however, we need to ensure that we have enough liquidity to compensate for a sharp decline in revenue over the short term.