What is "better"
Using football clubs to show how WHAT you choose to measure can influence the outcome you get.
Inspired by a discussion between two contacts of mine (Omar Rashid and Gurdas Singh) about their respective football teams (Chelsea and Arsenal) I decided to apply some HR data experience to the question raised.
Firstly, though, I need to declare my own position. I grew up in Watford during the time that Elton John owned the club and the late, great Graham Taylor took us as manager from the old fourth division to second place in the first division (now the Premier League) and in to Europe. I was smitten and Watford FC have always been my team. In the intervening period there have been up’s and down’s but at least my own allegiances won’t give too much bias in this article!
So, to the question.....
Omar believes that “Chelsea are a bigger club than Arsenal in modern day football” and Gurdas obviously disagrees.
To look at this objectively (clearly Omar and Gurdas are biased!) we need to start by deciding what we need to measure to say if a club is “bigger” and will also need to define “modern day football”.
I suggest that “bigger” would be measured by a combination of match attendances, turnover and profit, players, and reach of the club outside of immediate catchment area. The data I’ve pulled together is…..
Attendance: Average attendance at Chelsea home matches is 40,508 and at away matches is 36,807. For Arsenal this is 59,906 at home and 40,904 away. Result - Arsenal win.
Accounts: For the accounts to year ending June 2017 and most recent publicly available, Chelsea’s turnover was £368m but they made a loss of £14m. For the same year, Arsenal’s turnover was £427m and they made a profit of £45m. Result - Arsenal win.
Players: In September 2018, Chelsea had 53 players registered with the Premier League and Arsenal had 26 players registered. According to a CIES report, Chelsea have 3 players (Kante, Morata, Hazard) in the top 50 most valuable in Europe whereas Arsenal only have 2 (Lacazette, Aubameyang). Result - Chelsea win.
Reach: Both are London clubs so their representation in a shop here in the Midlands would be an indication of reach outside their immediate catchment area. My local sports shop (Tamworth Sports Direct) sells merchandise from several football clubs – shirts, toys, pencil cases, etc. Arsenal and Chelsea were equally represented in the merchandise except for desk calendars, only available for Chelsea (but it was on sale as we’ve had nearly a month already!). Result - score draw
But, did Omar really mean “bigger” in his assertion of Chelsea’s ascendancy or was he, in fact, implying that he believes Chelsea are “better”? And, if so, what else should be measured to determine this?
I would suggest league placing, average points won per season, trophies won and points from matches against another team, say, Watford (that one’s for me!!). The data for “bigger” is the current position but, before looking at the data for “better”, I need to define the timeframe for “modern day football”. Are we considering data since the start of the Premier League (1992), for this century (1999/00 or 2000/01 season onwards) or for this decade (2009/10 or 2010/11 season onwards)? Or another timeframe?
I happen to like round numbers so I’ve chosen to pull the data for the last 10 full seasons i.e. from the 2008/09 season to the 2017/18 season inclusive…..
League placing: Chelsea have finished anything from top to 10th, Arsenal 2nd to 6th but usually 3rd or 4th. Averaging the placings, Chelsea would finish 3rd, Arsenal 4th. Result - Chelsea win.
Average points: Chelsea have an average of 76 points per season, Arsenal an average of 72 points per season. Result - Chelsea win.
Trophies won: I’ve included FA Cup, League Cup, Charity / Community Shield and Champions League trophy. Chelsea have won 7 and Arsenal 6. Result - narrow Chelsea win.
Points against Watford: For this timeframe, Watford have been in the same league for 3 seasons. In these seasons, Chelsea have taken 11 points, Arsenal 12 points. Result - narrow Arsenal win.
As an alternative option I also looked at the same measures for the current century for “modern day football” with pretty much the same outcomes.
Results from the data I’ve pulled together are that in the last 10 seasons Arsenal are the bigger club, Chelsea are the better one. So, does this answer the original question??
There are clearly flaws with this data, the first and most obvious is that I have only considered measures for Chelsea and Arsenal. I could have included other teams but I do have a day job too! (although an interesting finding was that the only item in the sports shop with Man City branding was a pair of slippers…take from that what you will :-))
The other flaw is that I’ve chosen the measures and timeframe, they seem reasonable but they are my choices. What other measures could have been chosen? Would they have made a difference to the results?
And, how does this relate to data you use in your organisation? Are you measuring “bigger” when you really mean “better”? Are you including an equivalent of “points against Watford” in your promotion decisions when it is probably not relevant? Are you using an out of date timeframe for your measures?
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