Ipswich Town.A case Study in Relegation from the EPL.

Of the 18 Premiership Manager of the Year Awards,12 have gone to managers who hail from Scotland.Unsurprisingly the bulk of this total is down to Sir Alex Ferguson and his mightily successful Manchester United teams and most people would quickly name Kenny Dalglish (at Blackburn) as another recipient.Between them Dalglish and Ferguson account for 11 of the twelve,Dalglish contributes just one in 1994/95,but the identity of the third and final Scottish EPL titan probably requires some thought.

George Burley is probably best remembered as a cultured full back in Bobby Robson's Ipswich sides of the late 70's and early 80's.He provided half of the fullback pairing with Mick Mills when Ipswich upset Arsenal,1-0 in the 1978 FA Cup final.A game notable for the goal scorer,Roger Osbourne collapsing with exhaustion and having to be replaced immediately after he had scored the winner.He was still a regular in the iconic UEFA cup winning team of 1981,containing such Ipswich legends as Muhren, Thijssen, Butcher, Wark,Gates and Brazil,but injury forced him out of the goal laden two legged final.

He served a brief player manager apprenticeship in his native Scotland before taking over at Ipswich via near neighbours Colchester in 1994 and after a series of near misses in the playoffs he steered the East Anglian side back to the top flight in 2000.

We've seen here that the jump in class from Division One (as it was called in 2000) to the Premiership appeared to be marginally easier for teams to accomplish in the earlier years and there are a few examples where promoted teams not only survived,but they also challenged for honours.Burley's Ipswich were one such team,they missed out on a Champions League spot to Leeds on the last day of the season when they failed to beat an already safe Derby,but their 5th place finish was enough to gain UEFA Cup qualification and win the EPL's Manager of the Year award for Burley.

Hopes were understandably high for the next campaign.Ipswich lacked the star studded lineups that had been a constant feature of Burley's time as a player at Portman Road,but they had finished within four points of the runner's up spot and they had gained almost double the amount of points required to avoid the drop that year.The Premiership positions immediately below the top four places show the least correlation between seasons,the upside is extremely limited and there are usually a glut of similarly talented squads around and below that area of the table who can improve markedly in the next year.On average teams finishing in the region of 6th or 7th drop around 4 places in the immediately following season. But 2001/02 was not just anticlimactic for the Tractor Boys it was to be their last season in the top flight and 2000/01 EPL Manager of the Season,George Burley was sacked within weeks of their return to the lower ranks.

So what went wrong and could such a decline be anticipated or avoided ?

The EPL season comprises 38 games and although the general belief is that luck evens itself out over a season,it isn't so.Teams can and do enjoy extended runs where good fortune seems to smile on them and a run of good fortune is not immediately counterbalanced by an equal run of bad luck.All you can reasonably anticipate is that your streak will be followed by a prolonged run of neither excessively good nor excessively bad luck and eons down the line your streak will be a insignificant peak in a universally dull landscape.Therefore,over seasons and over the 20 teams comprising the EPL there will be years where everything falls butterside up and a team scale to heights where they don't necessarily belong.

To see if this happened to Ipswich in 2000/01 we can use two techniques to see if luck propelled them to the top to the EPL.

Scoring the first goal is a great advantage and it makes the prospect of points very likely.The pre game goals expectation of each team is related to the likelihood that they will be the first scoring team in that match.So we can use Ipswich's record in Division One and increasingly their results record in their EPL season to see if they were opening the scoring at higher than expected and likely unsustainable levels.

In their 2000/01 season over the season on a cumulative game by game basis Ipswich were predicted to score about 48 goals and concede 53 over the season and as such would have opened the scoring in just under half of their EPL games.However,no doubt to the delight of their fans and management they bucked the historical trend for EPL sides and opened the scoring in 23 of the 38 games or 61% of the time.Either Ipswich were (much) better than their recent representative results indicated or they were running their luck.

To see which explanation is more likely we can further use the Expected Points haul Ipswich gained after each   first goal was scored.I've charted the cumulative Expected Points gained by Ipswich in games where first they and then their opponent drew first blood.

Expected Points for Ipswich vs Actual Points where Ipswich opened the scoring in 2000/01.

Number of Games.	Cumulative Expected Points after 1st Goal.	Cumulative Actual Points Total.
23	46.0	45

Expected Points for Ipswich vs Actual Points where Ipswich's Opponents opened the scoring in 2000/01.

Number of Games.	Cumulative Expected Points after 1st Goal.	Cumulative Actual Points Total.
15	9.6	18

The games where Ipswich score first,on average result in the actual points gained virtually equalling the Expected Points from that game position.In games where Ipswich went behind they massively out performed the expected number of points total.

However,this should have given Ipswich cause for concern for the 2001/02 season.They grabbed the lead in the majority of games (unusual in itself),but they performed very much to their pre game rating after the goal had been scored in those games.An Ipswich first goal came,on average after 37 minutes so for 1311 subsequent minutes of the season they performed in a manner not inconsistent with their assumed rating and although they outperformed their assumed rating when trailing,the difference is only attributable to 3 extra wins over 15 games.

Their first season performance was definitely atypical.They scored the first goal much more often than would be expected,they retrieved more points than expected when they trailed,but for 1311 minutes of the season they played as a slightly below average EPL side would play.If as seems likely they had gotten lucky in 2000 or caught teams unaware,they should have anticipated a less extreme set of outcomes the next year and that would mean almost certainly less points.

If we chart the 2001/02 season we see a combination of poor signings,the added burden for an over performing side of European football and a team no longer riding their luck,but instead playing closer to their expected levels.Ratings from the previous season and increasingly from 2001/02 indicated that Ipswich should score the opening goal in 43% of games where at least one goal occurred and they scored it in 41% of games.Their run of opening goals had returned to earth.Their actual points very slightly under performed their Expected Points after a game's opening goal.In short they played to their below average rating and they weren't particularly lucky,resulting in relegation by 4 points.

Expected Points for Ipswich vs Actual Points where Ipswich opened the scoring in 2001/02.

Number of Games.	Cumulative Expected Points after 1st Goal.	Cumulative Actual Points Total.
14	29.5	27

Expected Points for Ipswich vs Actual Points where Ipswich's Opponents opened the scoring in 2001/02.

Number of Games.	Cumulative Expected Points after 1st Goal.	Cumulative Actual Points Total.
20	7.0	5

They were only a slightly worse side in 2001/02 compared to 2000/01 and they hadn't deserved to be a top 5 side in their first year and they were probably slightly unfortunate to be relegated the following season,but that's why they play the season just once and not many times over to try to iron out the short term wrinkles.It's the short term wrinkles that makes sport interesting.In 2001/02,they under performed their pre game rating after an opening goal by 4 points,the margin by which they were relegated.Small margins,indeed.

Many were of the opinion that Burley was fortunate to be awarded the Manager of the Year accolade in 2001,amongst them Gerard Houllier,who thought Gerard Houllier should have won it.......he was probably correct.