One Too Many Managers

I recently posted a series of graphs showing the effects of changing manager on the battle against relegation among newly promoted teams. As a Newcastle fan and punishment glutton, I had no choice but to apply the same to the masterpiece in the field of managerial mess that was the Magpies’ 2008-09 season.

The aim of the graph is to show, for each managerial change, how many points the team would have finished with had the outgoing manager seen out the season and continued their points-per-match rate. That previous post has some more explanation and a key.

Given the small number of matches in most of these managerial tenures, the extrapolated points totals should only be considered after applying many a grain of salt. So much salt is needed, in fact, that you will need to be wary of wags asking if you want some analysis with your salt.
If you ignore Chris Hughton’s pointless three match spell at the helm in September, each manager performed worse than their predecessors. Had Kevin Keegan stayed in charge, Newcastle would have finished sixteen points clear of safety. They would also have survived if Joe Kinnear’s health problems had not forced him out. Newcastle would have still avoided the drop had Hughton been left to see out the season following his second appointment as caretaker. Change, in Newcastle’s 2008-09 campaign, was a bad thing.