How soon is too soon to judge a manager?

[Jimmy McNulty]

May be of interest to some of the statos on here:

 

On the basis of the McGlynn GTF threads, I wondered, statistically speaking, how soon is too soon to judge a manager.

 

Attached you will see 2 charts for two of our longer-serving managers -- Jeffries (from 1995-2000) and Levein (2000-2004).

 

What you see is the cumulative percentage of total of available points for games* under their tenure (and in red, the 10-game running averages of % of total available points). (* SPL games only).

 

Some things to note: Jeffries overall % of total available points (0.49) was reached after 30 games or so, and from then on fluctuated slightly around this level. Levein's % of total available points (0.51) was reached after close to 100 games (it climbed slowly but surely from game 80 or so). The 10-game averages are also interesting, showing that Jeffries tenure was more widely varying in terms of performance than Levein`s.

 

So, on the basis of these arguments, no, you can`t judge a manager after 5 games

 

May add some more data from our recent managers for comparison...