Why are EPL clubs preferring to recruit foreign managers?
A few weeks ago I read a very interesting article by Sean Ingle in the Guardian comparing the performance of foreign managers in the EPL with their British & Irish counterparts. Using data compiled at the University of Bangor in Wales, the headline statistic was that foreign managers have averaged 1.66 points per game since 1992/93, compared to just 1.29 for those from the UK & Ireland. As Ingle points out: this amounts to a whopping 14 extra points over the course of the season. My first thought was that these results might be misleading because of a potential selection bias. If overseas managers have tended to work for the top EPL clubs then of course they would have a higher average points per game, simply because a larger proportion of them managed big clubs than their domestic counterparts. In that case it’s not fair comparison. In the first part of the blog I will look at this in more detail: will the result reported in the Guardian stand up to further scrutiny? Neve