I have just finished reading Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and am currently reading The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow. Both books, as the titles suggest, look at how random events impact on both our personal and professional lives. Taleb is a stockmarket trader and part of his book focuses on how traders may become successful through luck rather than judgement in the short-term but can be undone by “unforeseen” events, as has been proved by the recent global financial meltdown. Taleb argues that most traders tend not to make allowances for extreme events (e.g. the terrorist attacks of 9/11) which, although unlikely to happen, will happen every now and then. Taleb calls these events “Black Swans” – seeing thousand of white swans and no black ones does not prove that all swans are white but seeing one black swan proves that not all swans are white.
Another profession where random events can heavily influence success is football management. There are many factors that managers have little or no influence over at any point in time – injuries to players, refereeing decisions, playing squads inherited from previous managers and even the presence of beach balls on the pitch. A manager’s career can therefore be heavily reliant on luck. Young managers enduring a period of bad luck at the start of their careers can quickly find themselves under pressure and out of a job despite having the talent required to be successful in the long term. The stigma of failure can be hard for a manager to shake off making it difficult to find another club prepared to take a chance on them. Conversely, new managers can enjoy a period of good luck at the start of their careers building themselves a reputation that can sustain them through future periods of poor performance.
Iain Dowie
Iain Dowie is manager for whom success came quickly but who’s career in football management has now dramatically tailed off, just a few years after it started. Dowie’s first club in football management was at Oldham Athletic. In May 2002 he stepped up from assistant manager following the sacking of Mike Wadsworth. In his first season he led the club into the Division Two play offs after spending heavily on players. However, the club then hit financial trouble leading to the loss of many first team players and Dowie and his squad were not actually paid for several months. Dowie eventually resigned from the position in December 2003.
In his time at Oldham, Dowie benefitted from the misguided decision of the board to spend heavily. This allowed to him to build a successful side. The club were then unable to sustain this investment but Dowie left with his reputation intact as the club’s financial difficulties rather than his own ability were seen to be the cause of the decline of the club’s fortunes.
A couple of days after leaving Oldham, Dowie joined Crystal Palace, a team occupying 19th place in the Championship. Under Dowie’s leadership Palace won 17 out of the next 23 games reaching the play-offs. They then beat West Ham in the final earning a place in the Premiership.
Palace lasted just a season in the Premiership although they were only relegated on the last day of the season. Back in Division One they managed to reach the play-offs again in the following season although they lost heavily to Watford in the semi-finals (managed by another up and coming young manger, Aidy Bothroyd).
Dowie’s success at Crystal Palace can be linked to one player in particular. Up until Dowie arrived at Selhurst Park Andy Johnson’s career had failed to take off with previous managers at the club often playing him on the wing. At centre forward, Johnson scored 32 goals in Dowie’s first season followed by 21 goals in the Premiership, making him the second highest scorer in the league that season. Johnson stayed for another season at Palace after relegation but eventually left to join Everton for a fee of £8.6 million. Johnson has since established himself as a Premiership centre forward with Fulham reportedly paying over £10 million to secure his services.
Dowie has called Johnson the best player he has worked with and was fortunate that Johnson was part of the Palace squad when he arrived. However, Dowie must take credit for galvanising the player and getting the most from him.
Dowie’s reputation was on the up. He was seen as a progressive manager employing a fitness trainer and unafraid of using new techniques which he felt might give his team an advantage. Dowie was one of the few managers who had a degree (a masters in Mechanical Engineering) which helped to build an image of a man more intelligent than his peers. He was also seen as a manager who was a great motivator of players, taking inspiration from books such as Beyond Winning and Chicken Soup for the Soul.
In May 2006 he left Crystal Palace “by mutual consent” and 8 days later he was back in the Premiership as Charlton Athletic’s manager. The Palace chairman, Simon Jordan, was furious, claiming that Dowie had misled him about his reasons for leaving, stating he wanted to be closer to his family in the north of England. Simon Jordan issued a writ, winning a court case against Dowie. Dowie appealed against the court’s ruling and eventually the two parties settled out of court.
Despite having more money to spend on players than any previous manager at the Valley, Dowie only lasted 15 games at Charlton following a disastrous start to the season. As well as the club’s poor form there were also rumours of Dowie falling out with the Charlton board over his methods.
Following 3 months out of work Dowie then joined Championship club Coventry City in February 2007. Despite the club being in a dire financial state Dowie started well, keeping them in the Championship. However, in the following season results tailed off dramatically after a good start. Dowie, was though, working at a club that found itself close to administration. He joined on the understanding that new owners were ready to take over the club. This deal never materialised leaving Dowie with little money to work with in the transfer market.
In February 2008 with the club on the brink of administration, a private equity company called SISU agreed a deal to take over Coventry City. The new chairman, ex-footballer Ran Ranson, quickly released Dowie from his contract after disagreements with the manager over how the club should move forward.
Dowie was undoubtedly unlucky at Coventry. Although the promised investment never materialised the team won a similar proportion of games as Crystal Palace had under his stewardship. His sacking appeared to be more as a result of a clash of personalities with Ranson rather than a reflection on his performance as manager. However, this was the third consecutive job where Dowie had clashed with the board.
At the beginning of the 2008/9 season Dowie found himself in charge at Queens Park Rangers, a club recently bought by the multi-millionaire Formula One tycoons Bernie Ecclestone and Flavio Briatore. Dowie only lasted 15 games and was sacked with the club in 9th place in the league. Dowie’s problems with authority figures seemed to continue with rumours of clashes with Briatore over the club’s transfer policy.
It was another 6 months until Dowie found another job, becoming Alan Shearer’s assistant at Newcastle United on April Fool’s Day 2009. The club won just 1 game in 8 under Shearer’s reign which ended with them dropping into the Championship.
Since then Dowie has not found work at another club and is rarely mentioned when vacancies arise. He is now regularly employed as a pundit on Sky Sports (a sort of poor man’s Chris Kamara) and it may be that his future is more likely to be in the media than in football management.
Dowie’s career illustrates how luck helped to give him the reputation as one of the most promising managers in England and how the lack of it seems to have destroyed that reputation in just 3 years. From his record it’s difficult to tell if Dowie is actually a good manager or a bad one. However his recent associations with failure do not make him an attractive managerial prospect for chairmen or fans.
The big, successful clubs tend to have managers with impressive track records built over long periods of time. Ferguson, Wenger and Ancellotti have proved they are good managers; the length of their careers meaning that their success is due to more than luck. The FA also appears to have been justified in employing Fabio Cappello as England manager. Despite his large salary his record at club level is second to none, proof of his undoubted ability as a manager. In contrast Steve McLaren had spent relatively little time in the game as a manager before becoming England boss and thus represented a big gamble on the part of the FA, one that didn’t pay off.
For smaller clubs unable to attract or afford managers with highly successful long-term careers how should they decide who to employ? For one I think they should be wary of managers who have been successful over a short period of time. Reputations in football can be built very quickly but short term achievements can be due to a large slice of luck. More seasoned managers such as Gary Johnson at Bristol City and Neil Warnock at Crystal Palace with long track records of achievement seem to be over-looked for jobs at bigger clubs, making less appeal to chairmen and fans than younger managers perceived to be on the up. However, the length of time they have been in the game proves their success is due to talent rather than luck. There’s no substitute for proven experience. For every young manager who will become the next Brian Clough there are many who will turn out to be the next Bryan Robson. Chairmen need to look beyond recent results in order to identify real talent.
