AI Experiment - Sack the Board! POSTPONED Pending FM2010 Remake

The Introduction

I, like many other people in the CSE forum, have followed Kipfizh's excellent Bandits through thick and thin... whilst we've moved onto the Bandits' second incarnation now, there was always one burning question from their first adventure - why was the board so hopeless? And so, with this new AI experiment, I hope to explore exactly what makes a good chairman. Surely impatient chairman are bad, because they'll never let a manager settle, but conversely then, would a very patient chairman let a manager hurl the club into oblivion before contemplating use of the P45? These kinds of questions are exactly what this AI experiment will try to explore.

Obviously it's a hugely complicated subject to test - while we assume that the chairmen will affect their respective club's long-term success, clearly short-term success is based on so many other things - player quality, tactics, injuries, etc. So here's a basic rundown of how this experiment will pan out - the clubs used for testing will be the top 13 Premiership teams by reputation, who will be made as equal as possible. The only thing that will differ between them are their chairmen, so each club will have its own unique chairmen settings based on some real-life observations, apart from the control clubs, which will give a base line from which to judge. It won't be so much their success that I'm looking to judge, rather I'm looking for characteristics and trends that show - will a club with an intelligent businessman behind the scenes set more realistic transfer and wage budgets for the manager than one backed by a clueless lad with an enormous inheritance?

There are just a few little bits to go over before I get started - firstly that I will eventually release this database if the demand is there, but only once the experiment has been completed, and secondly that I have been as disappointed as anybody with some of the really interesting experiments that just die away after a few weeks, so if I make one promise to you all, it is that I will stick by this until it's finished. I will end it only for the following reasons: 1) nobody cares 2) my computer explodes and sets my backup disks on fire 3) I no longer have the mental capacity to form a report - and hopefully none of those will apply.

The Database Alterations

Right, with all that in mind, I'm now going to get into the nitty-gritty. I've extensively edited the 9.3.0 update database for purposes of this experiment, so here's a rough idea of exactly what I've changed, and what I've changed it to:

The League

Relegation and promotion are more likely to be a pain than anything else, since I want to spend the clubs being tested to spend as much time as possible competing on a level playing field - in the same league. Consequently, I've moved the top 12 Premiership clubs into the Singaporean League (which has no promotion/relegation to start with, and just one club when at all) - those being Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal, Spurs, Everton, Man City, Newcastle, Aston Villa, West Ham, Blackburn, and Middlesbrough - and renamed it the Super League to make it feel that bit more genuine. All of those clubs have been moved to the FM-fictional nation of Great Britain to avoid any tie-ins with England affecting them. Additionally, Bolton (as the 13th club) have been placed in the division below so that in the event of any relegation, they should be promoted in that club's place.

"Great Britain" has had its statistics altered to match those of Portugal, and the Super League has had its statistics altered to match those of Portugal's top division, the Liga Sagres. Why? I wanted the league to be of good quality, but not the same as the Premiership - I had no desire to see the clubs sign all of Europe's top talent, as it would spoil the point of the experiment. Rather, I wanted them to rely on a mix between youth and brought-in players, with a genuine need to carefully balance the books - I suspected that this would help show the differences between each club.

The Clubs

In keeping with the previous alteration, each club has been standardised in virtually all regards to match the statistics of middle-of-the-road, average reputation, Liga Sagres club Vitória Futebol Clube, or Vit. Setúbal for short. Only West Ham and Bolton differ, in that West Ham have been selected to take up the relegation spot to prevent a tested club disappearing off the radar, and Bolton have been chosen to replace them in that event - consequently both have considerably worse statistics than the other teams, in terms of finance, manager's ability, and reputation. If you want to know exact settings for each club, check Vit. Setúbal's in the 9.3.0 database. To look at the most obviously relevant settings, they have a reputation of 5400, a 19000 seater stadium with attendances of only 3300, 13 for training and youth with no academy, and about £350,000 in the bank with £230,000 to spend on wages. All of their players have been given free transfers, all of their loans have been cancelled, all of their staff have been sacked, and only a chairman and a manager remain. Each manager has been given a CA and PA of 135, and board confidence and fan confidence of 140 and 110 respectively, and a 3 year contract, giving the chairmen a more difficult decision about whether to look elsewhere for a manager. All managers have been given 10 across the board for all attributes. I must note here that there is just one flaw with my plan to make all clubs equal - I do not doubt that the "Favourite Clubs" feature is used within the game, but I simply don't have the time or desire to find every player in the game that likes one of these 13, and then delete that favourite - as a result, I hope that it won't affect the results too much, especially since I anticipate the results taking a fair few years to show up.

The Chairmen

Vital to this experiment are the chairmen, so following is the arrangement that will make or break each club's future. There are four settings for a chairman in the editor, which I deemed to work like so:

[b]Skill			20				1[/b]
Business		Wise spender			Wasteful
Interference		Always involved			Hidden away
Patience		Puts up with failure		Sack-happy
Resources		Loaded				Penniless

[b]Skills		Business	Interference		Patience		Resources[/b]
Man Utd		Well-run	Behind-the-scenes	Average			Rich
Chelsea		Well-run	Always interfering	Impatient		Rich
Liverpool	Poorly-run	Behind-the-scenes	Very patient		Rich
Newcastle	Poorly-run	Always interfering	Impatient		Rich
Arsenal		Well-run	Behind-the-scenes	Average			Poor
Spurs		Well-run	Always interfering	Impatient		Poor
Boro		Poorly-run	Behind-the-scenes	Very patient		Poor
Blackburn	Poorly-run	Always interfering	Impatient		Poor
West Ham	Average		Average			Average			Average
Everton		Average		Average			Average			Average
Man City	Average		Average			Average			Average
Villa		Average		Average			Average			Average

As you can see, West Ham, Everton, City and Villa will function as the "controls" in this experiment, so that we've got a baseline to work from. Most of the other clubs are based off a caricatured version of their running. As a (biased) Man Utd fan, I'm of the opinion that despite the Glazers' dodgy business plans, it is a well run club, and so it has what I think would generally be considered the ideal format. Chelsea are similar, but the chairman likes to get involved and won't accept failure in any regard. Liverpool are much like Man Utd, but will stick by their manager whatever happens, and perhaps aren't the best businessmen going. Newcastle are a bit of a mess - they've got the money, but don't use it well and always get involved in team affairs, whilst blaming the manager at the first opportunity.

The other clubs aren't as well off, but Arsenal are otherwise the same as Man Utd - they need to use their money extremely well though, as they lack similar resources. Spurs are the poor version of Chelsea, always at the manager's throat and picking the team sheet just for good measure, but at least they've got a good businessman on board. Boro keep out the way, and let the manager do as he wishes, but they aren't run well and don't have a lot of money - surely a recipe for disaster. Blackburn are perhaps the most useless of them all, with no money, a poor business sense, with a habit of doing the manager's job for him and then sacking him because their 2-7-1 formation wasn't a flying success.

I should mention here about takeovers - there is very little I can do to prevent takeovers, so my strategy is this: using the edt file already provided, I will prevent any takeover with these clubs other than promotion from within. If/when this happens, I will adjust the new board using FMRTE to match the previous chairman's statistics - perhaps not a perfect solution, but the only one I see as viable given the circumstances.

What About England?

Obviously as a consequence of 13 Premiership clubs moving to Singapore, there was a gaping hole in the Premiership - and I could have left it there. However, I decided to make this into a side-experiment. The remaining 7 Premiership clubs were demoted to the Isthmian Premier Division, the league just below the Conference North/South, and thus eligible to be promoted at the beginning of the second season as happens in Dafuge's challenge. These teams will then have their own version of Dafuge's challenge, fighting up through the leagues to reach the Premiership again... the question is, will the high wages and lack of income kill them before they get there? There will also be a reverse of Dafuge's challenge, as the top 20 teams from the Isthmian Premier will be moved into the Premiership, including such giants as Da West Staines Massiv, Ashford (Middx), Dover Athletic, and many more... will the financial boost of the Premiership's TV money allow them to cement their positions there and forge a new future despite their below-par stadia, facilities, managers and players, or will all 20 of them slide down the league system until they reach their old positions? And how will England's status as a top European footballing nation be affected, as the traditional Champions' League representatives in Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal are cast aside, replaced by the new boys, whether they be Bimingham and Burnley, or Staines and Ashford?

Singapore's only active league (obviously) and England's entire league system will be loaded and played in full detail, along with the World Cup and Euros and European Club Competitions.

That's about it for now, so please feel free to make any comments/predictions/suggestions whilst I make the last couple of tweaks to the database and get this ball rolling

Reserved for Season Update Links

are these ratings to reflect real life?

are these ratings to reflect real life?

I take it you mean the chairmen's abilities, in which case they are in a way. Some of them do link to my (somewhat biased) opinions of each club, but in the end the stats were chosen for completeness, in that they reflect every angle I want to investigate, and just assigned wherever they fit best (in some cases they don't fit at all, such as Blackburn, but somebody had to have those values).

Premiership clubs have been used more for interest's sake than anything else, to make it a little more lifelike.

I take it you mean the chairmen's abilities, in which case they are in a way. Some of them do link to my (somewhat biased) opinions of each club, but in the end the stats were chosen for completeness, in that they reflect every angle I want to investigate, and just assigned wherever they fit best (in some cases they don't fit at all, such as Blackburn, but somebody had to have those values).

Premiership clubs have been used more for interest's sake than anything else, to make it a little more lifelike.

Okay cool, they are pretty decent, I assume man city regarding resources doesn't reflect real life etc,etc.

Okay cool, they are pretty decent, I assume man city regarding resources doesn't reflect real life etc,etc.

Exactly - if I had to assign values to Man City, I'd probably consider them very similar to Chelsea, but for purposes of the experiment there's little benefit to having two teams exactly the same, so I used them as one of the controls instead. Besides, it's nice to see Man City back where they belong, basking in averageness

Looks promising

Looks great lad can't wait to see how it pans out.

very interested to see how this goes!

Looks a good set up so far, will follow this with interest.

English Review 08-09

Welcome to the first review of the AI Experiment, "Sack the Board!". As the primary focus of the experiment is the Super League containing the 12 edited teams, the game was started in January 2009 to ensure that no Super League games occurred without being played in full detail. Consequently, the Premiership season was already in full flow after the Christmas pile-up, and having reached June 2009 the English season has now finished, so it seems a good time to have a look at how the Premiership's new boys from the Isthmian League fared.

Squads

Surprisingly, despite their new-found wealth from TV deals, virtually none of the teams brought in any new players to start their new life with. In fact, the only player to join the division was ex-Man Utd youth player, Ritchie Jones, who joined Boreham Wood on a free transfer from Hartlepool. With wages of £1,500 per week, he instantly shot to the top of the Premiership's pay-league, a far cry from the current situation! All of the teams relied on a combination of their first-teamers and reserve team, with the youth players stepping in where required in the event of any injuries. To give you an idea of the calibre of the league, here is its top scorer, and its highest average rating player. Not exactly world-beaters, but in the context of a league where everybody's on a fairly level playing field, certainly sufficient to score 24 Premiership goals.

Being the first season, there's little to comment further on regarding the final league table - it's probably just as it would have been had the Isthmian League been simulated on the 9.3.0 databased, but it's provided here to have a look at. Certainly next season it will get a bit more interesting, with the addition of Birmingham, Bristol City and Ipswich from the Championship - although nobody blew the division away, Birmingham finishing on 86 points and 8 losses, they are still miles ahead of the current Premiership teams so it will be interesting to see how the clubs that stayed in the Premiership react to the new challengers.

Final Premiership League Table

Cup Competitions

With the quality of the "top" players in mind, it is perhaps unsurprising that no Premiership teams gave a good showing in any of the cup competitions. Four Premiership teams were able to progress to the 4th Round of the FA Cup, but only because they were lucky enough to play fellow Premiership teams in the 3rd Round. They were each knocked out with ease, including Margate who were destroyed 7-1 at home by eventual winners Reading, shockingly only the 13th best team in the Championship come May. With statistics like that, the incumbent Premiership teams can't be all that optimistic about next season. The League Cup, normally disregarded by the top Premiership teams, was again a complete whitewash, although Boreham Wood stood ahead all others to record the only win in a domestic cup competition for a Premiership team, beating Colchester of League 1 2-1 in a 2nd Round home tie - they then almost repeated the feat, forcing Nottingham Forest of the Championship into extra time in the 3rd Round before finally capitulating to a very late goal. Given those records, I doubt anybody was too surprised when the Champions League campaign got off to a rather poor start in the qualifying round, with the Staines comprehensively beaten by Club Brugge of Belgium, 4-0 on aggregate, and Sutton United losing 6-0 on aggregate to the Czech Republic's Sparta Prague. Dover and Carshalton represented England in the Group Stages, but with both conceding 20 goals, and only 3 and 1 goals scored respectively, you have to feel some sympathy. Especially for Adrian Toppin, formerly of the Metropolitan Police team, and Lewis Gonsalves, formerly of Sutton United, Carshalton's centre-back pairing who had to face a Zlatan Ibrahimovic in top form, recording a massive 7.91 average rating over the course of the Champions League campaign, although they did England proud, holding Inter to just 2-0 and 3-0 on the two occasions the two teams met.

Finances

Of course though, just by being involved in the Champions League and Premiership, the teams saw a tremendous change in their financial situation. By end of the season, Dover Athletic had a massive £48m in their bank account, courtesy of approximately £24m from TV revenue, and £23.5m from prize money, and the fact that over the course of the season, they spent just £700,000 on running the club. The only big cost that faced all of the clubs was the essential stadium upgrades they had to carry out to remove terracing in line with FA rules, costing Dover just over £8m, and particularly Staines who, being a bit more forward thinking, are in the process of constructing a 28000 seater stadium. Even so, even the bottom placed club had a balance of nearly £3m, so none of them should be having any money problems in the near future. The only question is whether they will use this money to cement their positions in the football league, or whether they'll decide to hold back. Based on Kipfizh's results so far in the new Bandits experiment, clubs do seem more willing to fork out money on wages to get players that will aid them, although whether these considerably poorer clubs will follow suit remains to be seen.

Conclusions

It's very hard to sum up this season really - the teams have done very little so far, and perhaps that is with good reason. By spending a year in the Premiership their reputations will rise as they play in such prestigious leagues and cup competition (Dover's for example was 1400 in the database to start with, and is now 2178), albeit slowly, and so their new-found wealth can be spent far better, and most importantly spent on improving their stadia to meet Premiership requirements. Having said that, all of them have very poor chairmen and managers, so it is debatable how well that money will eventually be spent - how long will it take before takeovers and sackings begin to improve those areas? Next season there will be a few things to look at - the teams promoted into the Blue Square North/South, how the reputation and financial changes of the Premiership clubs alter their behaviour with respect to the new competition and a few others things.

You might have noticed that I haven't really added many facts/screenshots, and that's for two main reasons - firstly that I personally don't think that there is a whole lot to analyse this season (in comparison to future ones), and secondly that I'd like to include information that people are interested in and would like to read about. All requests will be seriously considered, so feel free to make any comments/requests/predictions/polite insults you'd like to, for both angles of the experiment. A full analysis of the Super League's first seasons will follow in the next few days (it will take a while to write up fully), apologies for the wait but I'd rather make sure it's a good'un. I should also mention that it will include a full European round-up, to show where the Premiership's former stars have ended up. Thanks for reading, hope you all enjoyed the first update, and there's definitely a lot more to come .

I think we'll safely be able to predict the top three in the Premiership and the bottom three in the Championship at the end of next season. Dover's reputation isn't going to allow them to attract top talent, even when they have bucketloads of cash and offer European football.

Some of the Isthmian teams that manage to survive in the Premiership for the next four or so seasons might be able to avoid tumbling through the divisions though. I can't see Harrow enjoying the same luck

I'm not sure this project is as fair as it could be to be honest. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a brilliant idea, but to truly observe the affect a good chairman has, you would have to replace the teams of an entire league with "generic" teams, meaning they have the exact same players (with the same attributes preferably) with the exact same generic manager and the exact same size stadium, the exact same quality of youth facilities/training facilities and the exact same staff. This would allow you to truly observe just how effective a chairman can be, and whether an impatient/patient, generous/tight-fisted, business savvy/clueless, undisturbing/interfering chairman can be. I know it would take alot of time, but this is the only way to set a level playing field, in my opinion.

I'm not sure this project is as fair as it could be to be honest. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a brilliant idea, but to truly observe the affect a good chairman has, you would have to replace the teams of an entire league with "generic" teams, meaning they have the exact same players (with the same attributes preferably) with the exact same generic manager and the exact same size stadium, the exact same quality of youth facilities/training facilities and the exact same staff. This would allow you to truly observe just how effective a chairman can be, and whether an impatient/patient, generous/tight-fisted, business savvy/clueless, undisturbing/interfering chairman can be. I know it would take alot of time, but this is the only way to set a level playing field, in my opinion.

In the OP he said the stadium / facilities / managers are all the same and all staff and players had been released, so I think it covers most bases.

Fantastic idea you have here. I have to be honest and admit im probably more interested in the "side experiment". Id be keen to find out how a season in the Premiership has affected reputations of the clubs. An likewise, will the ex prem/now isthmian teams completely lose their rep before they make it back to top flight football? Nice work mate. Keep it up!

I'm not sure this project is as fair as it could be to be honest. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a brilliant idea, but to truly observe the affect a good chairman has, you would have to replace the teams of an entire league with "generic" teams, meaning they have the exact same players (with the same attributes preferably) with the exact same generic manager and the exact same size stadium, the exact same quality of youth facilities/training facilities and the exact same staff. This would allow you to truly observe just how effective a chairman can be, and whether an impatient/patient, generous/tight-fisted, business savvy/clueless, undisturbing/interfering chairman can be. I know it would take alot of time, but this is the only way to set a level playing field, in my opinion.

If I could just split this down a little, I'll explain a little bit more as to what I've done.

1) they have the exact same players (with the same attributes preferably) - regens only

2) the exact same generic manager - done

3) the exact same size stadium - done

4) the exact same quality of youth facilities/training facilities - done

5) the exact same staff - all staff removed

Only in the players and staff fields have I not done what you recommended, but I think that there is something interesting in that.

Because all of the teams start with very average regens (all of the teams have 13 out of 20 for their youth setups), they will need to buy in players. Consequently, I think this should show more of the chairmen's attitudes - will they give the manager a big transfer budget, or a big wage budget to try to reach the top, or will they just accept mid-table mediocrity and save their money? Yes, the quality of regens will vary from year to year, but this is meant to be a long-term experiment, so theoretically it should all balance out by the end. Or perhaps the chairmen will look to invest in the youth/training and improve it. I don't know, but it will be interesting to find out.

Regarding your 5th point, the only staff remaining at the clubs were the managers (excluding chairmen). I used the add key staff feature to ensure that all clubs had the necessary complement of staff, but again it will be interesting to see whether they see fit to improve their staff in any way, or leave it as is.

You're right in that it will never be perfect, but I would like to think that I've made this a fair and balanced experiment in every way that seems feasible. I think perhaps the one flaw here is that because I've used the same chairmen, the same clubs, the same managers, and just adapted their information, as opposed to generating 12 brand new fake clubs, it looks as if it's a bit of a half-baked idea, but I really have been thorough. Even the stadium build dates have all been set the same, just on the offchance that any of it might make the slightest difference.

In a way, the only real way to test the database is to run the game, so if it doesn't quite go to plan, then when the time comes around I'll run a second iteration of the experiment and try to get some better results - although even if it does go badly wrong, I'm sure something interesting will happen!

In the OP he said the stadium / facilities / managers are all the same and all staff and players had been released, so I think it covers most bases.

I think you summed up what I just posted in a far simpler way, thanks . It's always going to be the problem really - how many bases are enough. Hopefully I've covered enough of them, but we'll see.

Fantastic idea you have here. I have to be honest and admit im probably more interested in the "side experiment". Id be keen to find out how a season in the Premiership has affected reputations of the clubs. An likewise, will the ex prem/now isthmian teams completely lose their rep before they make it back to top flight football? Nice work mate. Keep it up!

Yeah, originally this experiment was going to be purely about the Chairmen AI, but when the Premiership had 13 gaps in it, I had to fill them with something. That was when I came up with the idea of running this little side experiment, and I have to admit as time's gone on I've become increasingly interested in how it's going to pan out. I will definitely plot the reputations of each club from season to season, and just see how they progress as it does seem to be the best measures of a club's stature in the game. As long as people are interested in reading something I've written, that's the main thing!

I think one potentially important factor which isn't investigated here is the "ambition" of chairmen, or for that matter managers (presumably you've given them all a default neutral value). This would probably have a big impact upon whether managers invest.

In the short term, I think whoever is lucky enough to get the best regens will get off to a good start. In the longer term I'd expect there to be a moderate trend towards richer clubs doing well and poorer clubs doing less well. Obviously I'd expect impatient chairmen to sack their managers with greater frequency as well, but I'm not sure this will have a measurable impact on performance

Super League Review 2009

Welcome to the first "proper" review of the AI Experiment, "Sack the Board!". Given that the Super League (read Singaporean League) is not perhaps one that everybody is familiar with, I should perhaps give a quick rundown of the league's specifics. It consists of 12 teams, and the teams play each other 3 times per season, giving a total of 33 games, running from February to November. It also only permits 6 foreign players to be registered per squad, and 4 to be used per game - thankfully, this recognises that the teams are registered in Great Britain, so foreign players mean "non-English", therefore restricting the number of European, South American and Asian players that each team can use over the course of a season. It uses two primary transfer windows, running from November to March, and July to August, although teams can sign players on free transfers throughout the season, something that has been used extensively in this first year.

Given that the four attributes I am investigating here are resources, business, patience, and interference, I'll be looking primarily at two angles - firstly the financial states of the clubs, and how money is used within the club, and secondly the chairmen's relationships with their managers. On with the season review!

Signings

With each club relying on a very poor set of regens, a lot depended on what sort of signings each manager could make in the transfer window. Here is the round-up of this season's transfers:

Man Utd - 20 Players Signed, including Adam Johnson, Aaron Lennon, JLloyd Samuel, Wayne Bridge, Ben-Haim, Anichebe, Vassell, Danny Mills, Ben Foster, Ryan Taylor, Fraizer Campbell, and Scott Gomes (regen keeper, £170k from Blackburn).

Spurs - 17 Players Signed, including Alan Hutton, Zat Knight, Ivan Helguera, Darcheville, Christian Dailly, Tom Huddlestone, and Michael Mifsud.

Everton - 17 Players Signed, including Phil Neville, Rob Green, Phil Jagielka, Leighton Baines, Steven Taylor, Gary O'Neil, Darren Ambrose, Craig Cathcart, James Vaughan, Stern John, Ched Evans, Brad Jones, and Kevin Nolan.

Blackburn - 15 Players Signed, including Damien Duff, Gary Cahill, Justin Hoyte, Carlos Costly (Belchatow, 450k), and Craig Bellamy (FC Dallas, 750k).

Aston Villa - 15 Players Signed, including Benjani, Tony Hibbert, Agbonlahor, Sidwell, Michael Dawson, Matty Taylor, Gareth Bale, Nigel Reo-Coker, Sol Campbell, and Javi Navarro.

Boro - 11 Players Signed, including Joe Hart, Lee Martin, Richard Dunne, Alan Smith, Harewood, O'Hara, Mancienne, and Emre.

Liverpool - 10 Players Signed, including Sami Hyypia, Jose Enrique, Habib Beye, Micah Richards, John O'Shea, Dean Ashton, Jermaine Pennant, Jermaine Jenas, David Dunn.

West Ham - 10 Players Signed, including Kris Taylor, Ben Smith, and Karl Broadhurst (all free from Hereford), and Danny Harrison and Michael Cummins (both free from Rotherham, and Steve Marlet.

Man City - 8 Players Signed, including Paul Robinson, Daniel Sturridge, Onuoha, and Dyer.

Newcastle - 7 Players Signed, including Steve Harper, Danny Simpson, Jack Collison, and Carlton Cole.

Arsenal - 7 Players Signed, including Nicky Shorey, Jermain Defoe, Chris Gunter, Mark Noble, and Danny Guthrie.

Chelsea - 5 Players Signed, including Carlo Nash, Nicky Hunt, Celso Borges (Saprissa, 2.3m), and Nacho (Real Madrid, 6k loan).

This is a pretty unusual set of circumstances, with three of the four richest clubs taking up the bottom spots in the table with fewest signings made - granted, Chelsea spent a huge amount of money on Celso Borges, but he's more of one for the future, at only 21 and with 131/155 CA/PA. Man Utd clearly made the most signings, and while none are particularly special, many of them have experience of the Premier League and are good quality players - a balanced squad would almost certainly be the most important thing when it comes to replacing the regens, but evidently a lot of the teams here didn't see the need to do anything particularly special. Blackburn, interestingly, spent just over £1m getting the aptly named "Carlos Costly" and making FC Dallas a tidy profit on their new signing Craig Bellamy - is it a wise investment by the worst chairman in the league though?

Finances

Club			Balance		Transfer Budget			Wage Budget p/w
Man Utd			£8.2m		£2.8m					£205,000
Chelsea			£24m		£10.5m					£24,500
Liverpool		-£1.1m		£0					£205,000
Newcastle		£5m		£1.8m					£205,000
Arsenal			£5.5m		£1.8m					£205,000
Spurs			-£1.2m		£75,000					£205,000
Middlesbrough		£7m		£4.4m					£54,000
Blackburn		£5.5m		£4.4m					£92,000
West Ham		£700,000	£150,000				£21,000
Everton			-£4.2m		£475,000				£93,000
Man City		£650,000	£65,000					£205,000
Aston Villa		-£2m		£100,000				£205,000

Some of the clubs here have got themselves into a real mess, although the figures have been altered a little bit by some sponsorship deals. Those have all been erased now, so hopefully that should fix itself over time. Financial problems don't seem purely for those clubs that are run badly, with Spurs run well and Everton and Villa both controls, but the clubs that are run well and are rich have done exceptionally well, Man Utd and Chelsea. Chelsea's strategy is interesting though - the very small wage budget but large transfer budget is quite odd, and certainly explains why they only made 5 signings, and paid £2.3m for one of them... maybe it will pay off in the future.

Managers

Early on in the season, Man Utd, Blackburn and Everton were leading the table, swapping positions every now and again as each game propelled a different team into the lead - a very interesting scenario with Man Utd representing the best run club, Blackburn representing the worst, and Everton a control set to average levels... clearly the differences would take a while longer to show through. At the other end of the table, things were a bit more complicated though. West Ham (little surprise given the rubbish stats they were given), Newcastle, Villa and Spurs all started poorly, and the pressure was really on the managers to see whether they could turn things around. Harry Redknapp was able to turn things around at Spurs, pulling them up from 10th to 5th after only 4 games, but by game 8 they had dropped down to 9th, and after a 2-0 loss to Aston Villa in the Preliminary Round of the Singapore Cup, Daniel Levy decided it was time to say goodbye - after an unbelievable 13 games Redknapp was out of a job.

They promoted his regen assistant, Joe James, as a caretaker manager whilst they looked for a replacement, and it wasn't really a spectularly good move for them, as they remained stuck in 9th for the entire 2 1/2 months that James was in charge. With a CA/PA of 70, and stats like these, it's perhaps no surprise that he didn't last very long, but odd that Spurs didn't ensure that they had a replacement lined up. Ironically, 10 weeks after sacking Redknapp they finally signed a manager: Paul Ince. Ironically though, he only has a CA of 118 and a PA of 131, so after all that messing around all they've managed to do is decrease the quality of their manager - with Redknapp, rated at 135 CA/PA. Presumably Levy's impatience played a big part in the (seemingly) premature departure of Redknapp, but it seems to have affected him to the point of not even waiting until a suitable replacement is found - was he firing before thinking?

Going back to the top of the table, Blackburn were doing extremely well, surprising given that they were meant to be the worst club in the league (excluding West Ham), and half-way through the season Sam Allardyce had led them to a fantastic 1st position. With the fans and chairman delighted, everything seemed to be going fantastically well, at which point their season predictable fell apart, sliding from 1st to 6th in just four games. John Williams put up with it for just a month, before true to his traits he booted Allardyce out. Unlike Levy, Williams had planned ahead though, and within just 3 days had appointed a new manager - one with Super League experience. However, it was the one name that Rovers fans didn't want to hear - Gianfranco Zola. As manager of the "worst team in the league", West Ham, his CA/PA is only 80, almost as bad as Joe James of Tottenham. Yet again, an impatient chairman had sacked their manager, without a particularly good reason, and then replaced them with somebody far inferior... clearly not a good move. West Ham responded by raiding Garforth for their 38 manager Simon Clifford. Yes, Garforth. No, I haven't either. They came 10th in the Northern Premier D1N in 07/08, and according to FM are an obscure semi-professional club. You might expect Clifford to be a bit of a joke, and he indeed has just 74 CA, but also a whopping 145 PA, making him potentially the best manager in the Super League. They were also able to make a £180,000 profit after Blackburn forked out for Zola, so they definitely did well out of the deal - the question is whether Clifford can reach his potential.

It is certainly intruiguing that in the very first season two of the four clubs with impatient chairmen sacked their managers - it would appear that it does make a difference. Is it a link though that those two both had chairmen with few resources? Chelsea and Newcastle also have impatient chairmen but saw no reason to sack their managers, perhaps because their chairmen have more money, and consequently more time. This will certainly take a few more seasons to analyse fully.

Super League Table 2009

Regens

Since this was the first season, I thought I'd have a quick look at some of the regens, and have come in for a few nice surprises. Man Utd have some excellent regens, having signed Scott Gomez earlier in the season from Blackburn for £170,000, whose CA/PA is 103/186 - should be an excellent keeper in years to come. From their own youth setup they have Carl Lovell, a central midfielder with 102/182, and Ian Bridges, a centreback with 108/177. However, leaving the best until last, Alex Costello has a CA of 123, and a colossal PA of 198!!. Given that they have 13 for training and youth facilities, how they've produced all of these players in one year is beyond me. A couple of other clubs in the league have a single regen with PA's in the 170s, but the mass at Man Utd is bizarre. Whatever happens, these players should have excellent careers ahead of them, especially Costello, who will surely become one of the best players in the world. I won't call it yet, but it seems a very odd situation.

Conclusions

Not really a lot to conclude this year - finances and signings are absolutely bizarre, with very little correlation towards the chairmen at the respective clubs. With regard to the managers being sacked there is definitely correlation, but it will take 2-3 more seasons before I'd want to call it, in case it's just a coincidence. As I've said before, I think this will ultimately end up being a long term analysis, it will almost certainly be far too difficult to see any changes that are a direct consequence of the chairmen until there is a good strong set of data. It certainly looks as though Man Utd will be dominating for the foreseeable future though - with lots of good players signed, the best chairman and some fantastic regens it's very hard to look past them... we will see what happens though.

Yet again, feel free to ask for any additional information, or to pass judgement on the review - any improvements I can make I'll gladly implement. Hopefully as time goes on I'll get a set of regular sections/updates I can do, but at the moment it's hard to know what to include. I can definitely provide a better account of the Super League goings-on - I haven't yet because it's not really all that relevant to the experiment, but if it would be appreciated I'll add it in. Hope it was worth reading, thanks in advance to anybody who replies .

Great idea for the main and side experiment a few thing I picked up on is some players going back to there clubs. Is there favourite club playing a part? to back this up is John O'Shea who went to Liverpool ( I'm a Man U fan) did Man U bid and he turn them down

After disaster Man U produce the youth lol crazy how there regens are so good and they have a few.

Daniel Levy does not wait to make decision to sack his manager but what stopped him hiring one for a while?

Chelsea have a interesting budget set I wonder how it will plan out.

Great start I look forward for more

Great idea for the main and side experiment a few thing I picked up on is some players going back to there clubs. Is there favourite club playing a part? to back this up is John O'Shea who went to Liverpool ( I'm a Man U fan) did Man U bid and he turn them down

After disaster Man U produce the youth lol crazy how there regens are so good and they have a few.

Daniel Levy does not wait to make decision to sack his manager but what stopped him hiring one for a while?

Chelsea have a interesting budget set I wonder how it will plan out.

Great start I look forward for more

Yeah it's a very odd thing with the players returning to old clubs - I agree that almost certainly the "favourite clubs" feature has a big effect, because there is no other reason for any player to pick one club over another.

However, it seems to be pre-engineered to an extent - I ran a couple of tests before I ran the real thing, to make sure that I didn't have an almighty crash at the end of the first season, and on each occasion John O'Shea went to Liverpool... in the editor, he has Man Utd as a favourite club, level 100, and Liverpool as a favourite club level 50. I have a vague recollection of John O'Shea saying in an interview that he was a boyhood Liverpool fan, so perhaps that's why he's set at 50. Presumably as well, for whatever reason, Man Utd don't bid for him so Liverpool must be the next best option.

As for the other things, I guess we'll see

The first season certainly shows the difficulty of producing a controlled experiment.

The number of ex-players returning to their former clubs is probably the factor that has had the biggest impact on the first season (looking at the lists at the start of the season, my money would have been on a rather familiar looking Everton side). In addition to "favoured clubs" it's also possible that AI managers' shortlists are designed to include former players at that club - it makes logical sense.

Possibly Spurs' managerial change resulting in a complete failure to recover from a poor start despite a strong squad on paper is the best evidence of chairmen actually making an impact. It's certainly not that far removed from reality...

Simon Clifford is pretty famous, more for his claims than his actual achievements. He's the guy that decided that what English football youth systems didn't teach kids was the small, skills-oriented futsal-type games that Brazilian kids grew up playing, and managed to convince a handful of ex-Brazilian nationals to endorse his project.

Despite not having anything resembling a footballing background, his outspoken advocacy of certain coaching techniques has given him the ear of the likes of Michael Owen and Tord Grip and his soccer schools franchise generated enough cash for him to buy Garforth.

So signing Simon Clifford as manager should leave them with even better regens than Utd

This experiment is on hold at the moment, not dead, just on hold. To be honest, the announcement that FM2010 will have fully customisable/creatable leagues has knocked the wind out of my sails a bit - it's exactly what I needed for this experiment, and would doubtlessly make it far more valid, so I'm not sure what to do.

Depending on what people suggest (if anybody is interested in the experiment, at least), I will continue with this and see where it goes, or alternatively I will wait until FM2010 and re-create and re-run it (with exactly the same settings), which should provide far more realistic results. Your thoughts?

This experiment is on hold at the moment, not dead, just on hold. To be honest, the announcement that FM2010 will have fully customisable/creatable leagues has knocked the wind out of my sails a bit - it's exactly what I needed for this experiment, and would doubtlessly make it far more valid, so I'm not sure what to do.

Depending on what people suggest (if anybody is interested in the experiment, at least), I will continue with this and see where it goes, or alternatively I will wait until FM2010 and re-create and re-run it (with exactly the same settings), which should provide far more realistic results. Your thoughts?

I've read what's happened so far and I'm intrigued. That's some really nice work you've produced.

But if waiting for FM10 would equal a more effective set-up, then that's what I support. (If you're willing to repeat all your time and effort.)

I've read what's happened so far and I'm intrigued. That's some really nice work you've produced.

But if waiting for FM10 would equal a more effective set-up, then that's what I support. (If you're willing to repeat all your time and effort.)

Cheers! Yeah I've got no issues going through it again, I'd rather wait and have an accurate experiment than rush through this one and always have doubts in the back of my mind.

Obviously in some situations it's better to carry on - I know Kipfizh discovered some flaws in his experiment very late on, but in that instance people were very attached to the clubs and so on due to how late it was, so it made more sense to continue. In this instance I'm so close to the beginning I wasn't sure there was much to hang onto... I'm disappointed not to find out what happens to that awesome Man Utd regen who came out of nowhere, but I don't think myself (or anybody reading) will be particularly bothered the teams or their players yet - there just hasn't been enough time to develop.

Based on the fact that I've hardly been flooded with people asking me to continue (read into that what you will ), I think I will postpone this experiment pending a better version in FM 2010, which will be started as soon as I get the game and adjust the database, without any patch alterations. Of course, if anyone has an opinion, please let me know - I won't be deleting any of my save data so it can always be restarted, but otherwise it will be postponed. Cheers to everyone who followed it in its brief history thus far, I appreciate your comments and I promise that the 2010 version will arrive and make up for this experiment's early termination.

Regards,

Jim.