With five days to go before the Premier League opening weekend I’m previewing the Spurs season but with a numerical twist! I’ll countdown the days from 5 to 1 giving my thoughts on each number, each day.
5 Days
My five is for 5th place. Tottenham finished 5th last season and realistically I think that this should be the expected target again. Despite the form of Harry Kane last season and the improvements made to the Spurs defence so far in the summer transfer window I think a 4th placed finish is unlikely. Fundamentally this is because of the well-established principle that league success is strongly correlated with player wages and, to a much lesser extent, player transfer value (Kuper and Szymanski, 2012). Last season Chelsea, Manchester City, Arsenal and Manchester United finished above Spurs and although the data is hard to come by I would guarantee that all teams had higher wage bills than spurs (especially given the number of young players in the first team on lower wages).
Source: tottenhamhotspur.com
In fact, according to data experts at the CIES Football Observatory Spurs actually overachieved by two league places last year based on predictions using the demographic structure of the clubs (including wages). Based on their predictions Spurs should have finished 7th behind the usual suspects plus Everton! Liverpool underperformed by three places by finishing 6th when they were predicted to finish 3rd and all other top four teams performed as expected. Similarly, based on cumulative transfer values per team (from data correct as of 8th June 2015) Spurs were the 6th most expensive English club behind Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester City and Manchester United. So Spurs really did overachieve by finishing 5th based on wage and transfer estimates. Luck (or Harry Kane) probably played a key part in last season’s performance but for Spurs to break into the top four another team has to drop out and who will this be?
So far this season Spurs have bought well but conservatively with an estimated total spend of £19.3m (Wimmer, Alderweireld and Trippier). Elsewhere, Liverpool have strengthened their first team by spending an estimated £83m (Clyne, Firminio, Milner, Ings and Benteke). Manchester United have also spent an estimated £76.7m (Schneiderlin, Schweinsteiger, Depay and Darmian) and Manchester City an estimated £57m (Sterling and Delph). Only Chelsea (£12.5m on Begovic and Nathan) and Arsenal (£10 on Cech) have spent less than Spurs but I doubt that the gap in squad quality has been bridged.
So we can expect another battle for 5th and the Europa League again. If Liverpool’s signings actually work out however we might even end up with 6th!
What do you think Spurs fans? Is 5th the realistic target?
Psychobob
Latest posts by Psychobob (see all)
- Countdown to the Spurs 2015/16 Season…. 1 Day - August 7, 2015
- Countdown to the Spurs 2015/16 Season… 2 Days - August 6, 2015
- Countdown to the Spurs 2015/16 Season… 3 Days - August 5, 2015
I’d be interested to know where QPR faired in the stats for wages against expected league position.
Also interesting to compare Liverpool’s relative failure last season in reinvesting the Suarez money, against Spurs spending the Bale cash. I think Liverpool have done better this time selling a sulky Sterling and then spending that. All depends on which Benteke they get. When he’s good, he’s good. But when he’s not…
Yeah QPR were expected to finish 20th based on their club demographic according to the CIES predictions. And that’s exactly where they finished. I think they have had some notorious footballing mercenaries on high wages but perhaps over the whole first team/ squad the total wage structure is one of the lowest? Leicester are more interesting as the side who under achieved the most, despite their amazing end to the season!