[Albion] Albion (Hughton?) performance - the short term effect of Ashworth's appointment?

[Machiavelli]

You weren't that pissed at that point in the evening then?

I take it this was raised at about midnight* while I was spectacularly deteriorating




* it might have been nearer 10

 

[On the way]

Totally with Golstone1976 on this (great posts), it’s a theory that’s been on my mind since the news yesterday and like he/she says it is just a theory. I don’t know why some people seem to get so critical, offended and defensive because someone else may have a different view or opinion to their own

 

[Machiavelli]

You weren't that pissed at that point in the evening then?

It's all come flooding -- or trickling, if I'm being honest. Has this got something to do with your interview technique, which I failed?

 

[One Teddy Maybank]

This.

Wild guessing, which the club (through Naylor) put firmly to bed.

But would the club say anything different, whatever the facts are (which is likely we'll never know).

 

[Goldstone1976]

It's all come flooding -- or trickling, if I'm being honest. Has this got something to do with your interview technique, which I failed?

only for salespeople, mind!

 

[Audax]

Dan Ashworth started work with the Albion on 12 Feb 2019.

There were 26 matches in the 2018/19 PL season before 12 Feb 2019. At that point we were 14th in the League, with 27 points. PPG = 1.04.

Since 12 Feb 2019, there have been 12 PL games. We finished in 17th, having achieved a further 9 points from those 12 games. PPG = 0.75.

How about we look at all the data, maybe it might reveal a different story / hypothesis? Let's start by looking at another date ... say, 5 Dec 2018? Let's see what that reveals:

There were 15 matches in the 2018/19 PL season before 5 Dec 2018. At that point we were 10th in the League, with 21 points. PPG = 1.4.

Since 5 Dec 2018, there have been 23 PL games. We finished in 17th, having achieved a further 15 points from those 23 games. PPG = 0.65.

Oh. Hang on. Might we need a new hypothesis? For sake of adding to the data available, here's what happened in the period between 5 Dec 2018 and 12 Feb 2019:

There were 11 matches in this period. In this period we achieved 6 points, slipped to 14th on the table. PPG = 0.55.

So onto your hypothesis:

And people said that the appointment of Ashworth wouldn't upset the applecart.

Some, including me, said it would, at least in the short term, and these stats would support the argument that it did. And, arguably, Hughton lost his job as a consequence.

Note: I am not saying that Ashworth's a bad bloke, nor that his appointment isn't in the best mid/long-term interest of the club as I simply don't know. Rather, I'm simply saying that I called it as a "fudge" at the time of his appointment (albeit with my predicted victim being Winstanley, not Hughton), and that (tongue firmly in cheek) "...after all there’s no history of an incoming Technical Director having caused internal ructions in other pro football clubs..."

I submit that your hypothesis is not proven. A deeper look at the data instead suggests that our run of poor form had already started before Ashworth arriving, and that actually the overall performance improved slightly after his arrival.

I suspect looking at even more data points in addition to the in-progress points tables might help us to reveal a more accurate picture of how everything went so very, very wrong. A few items to look at? How about: did we have a run of (expected) defeats against strong opposition that might have sapped morale in the team? (Yes). For any run against strong opposition, did we also drop points against teams we would have reasonably expected to beat at the time, further sapping morale? (I'd argue Yes). Did we during that period have a spate of injuries that affected team selection / balance? Anything else we can think of?

 

[On the way]

How about we look at all the data, maybe it might reveal a different story / hypothesis? Let's start by looking at another date ... say, 5 Dec 2018? Let's see what that reveals:

There were 15 matches in the 2018/19 PL season before 5 Dec 2018. At that point we were 10th in the League, with 21 points. PPG = 1.4.

Since 5 Dec 2018, there have been 23 PL games. We finished in 17th, having achieved a further 15 points from those 23 games. PPG = 0.65.

Oh. Hang on. Might we need a new hypothesis? For sake of adding to the data available, here's what happened in the period between 5 Dec 2018 and 12 Feb 2019:

There were 11 matches in this period. In this period we achieved 6 points, slipped to 14th on the table. PPG = 0.55.

So onto your hypothesis:




I submit that your hypothesis is not proven. A deeper look at the data instead suggests that our run of poor form had already started before Ashworth arriving, and that actually the overall performance improved slightly after his arrival.

I suspect looking at even more data points in addition to the in-progress points tables might help us to reveal a more accurate picture of how everything went so very, very wrong. A few items to look at? How about: did we have a run of (expected) defeats against strong opposition that might have sapped morale in the team? (Yes). For any run against strong opposition, did we also drop points against teams we would have reasonably expected to beat at the time, further sapping morale? (I'd argue Yes). Did we during that period have a spate of injuries that affected team selection / balance? Anything else we can think of?

Maybe, and it is only a maybe, Dan Ahsworth’s imminent arrival, around “say 5 Dec 2018” possibly, could have already started to rankle with the clubs most successful manager at this point, and, this may go some way to explaining a downturn in results at this earlier date!
I don’t think it’s beyond the realms of possibility that the appointment of a technical director could have had an unstabilising effect on an experienced manager well on the way to achieving his target, as set out by Tony Bloom, of Premier League survival again. We will never know for sure either way unless Chris Hughton ever speaks publicly about it, which I very much doubt as the man has far too much class to do so, let’s just think about that “too much class” shame!