Southampton Weekly Salaries (Update final FM 2015 database)

Edit:  An updated version of this post can be found here.

Football Manager 2015 has released their post-January transfer window update.  Following my policy of cribbing data from them and posting things that interest me, I have decided to update the Southampton Weekly Salaries post from last month.

As I stated then, I have no idea how accurate these figures are and they do not take into account performance bonuses.  On the other hand, last summer when I was considering Financial Fair Play issues FM’s base salaries fairly closely corresponded to the information released by the club for the players’ salaries as a whole.

I have left the last numbers in so it is easy to see the changes.  The salaries are in thousands of pounds per week.

PLAYER                                 CURRENT             NOVEMBER 2014

Alderweireld                      £68                         £78

Ramirez                                £55                         £55

Osvaldo                                £54                         £54

Long                                      £50                         £50

Mane                                    £45                         £45

Bertrand                              £43                         £35

Tadic                                      £42                         £42

Elia                                         £40                         £46 (at former club)

Forster                                 £40                         £40

Ward-Prose                        £40                         £20  (Signed new contract between data bases.)

Pelle                                      £37                         £37

Wanyama                            £34                         £34

Schneiderlin                       £34                         £34

S. Davis                                 £34                         £34  (Signed new contract between data bases.)

Fonte                                    £34                         £34

Boruc                                    £32                         £32

Gardos                                 £30                         £30

Rodriguez                            £28                         £28

Yoshida                                 £28                         £22.5  (Signed new contract between data bases.)

Clyne                                     £27                         £27

Cork                                       gone                      £25

Mayuka                                £23                         £23

Hooiveld                              £18                         £18

K. Davis                                £16                         £16

Gazzaniga                            £14                         £14

Djuricic                                 £10.8                     £12.2 (At former club.)

Gallagher                             £10                         £10

Reed                                     £10                         £10

Everyone else is listed as making £5K or less  a week so I will stop here.

According to FM 2015, Southampton’s total weekly pay has increased £49K since September 1, 2014.  However, that includes the £10K per week drop in Alderweireld’s pay which almost certainly did not happen.  Presumably, the experts at FM decided that they overstated his salary in the first database which would mean an actual increase of £59K.  Assuming that, this year, that total is only paid for half a year, that would use up only £1.5M of the summer’s transfer profits and would certainly not move us anywhere near our salary cap.

McCarthy. Turnbull, and Mugabi have signed new deals since the transfer window closed.  Possibly they are making £5K or more now, but I have no way to determine that.  I do not think their increased salaries are significant to Southampton’s overall financial position—although I am sure that the individual players are quite pleased.

I am slightly surprised that there has been no extension of Lloyd Isgrove’s contract.  Given our potential need for club trained players to fill out our European roster next year, there would seem to be no good reason not to sign him.  Possibly, the contract is being negotiated even now.

I Make Predictions (Round 27)

Last round Mark Lawrenson got four games right for six points.  His celebrity guest got four games right for eight points.  Merson got five games right for seven points.  I got five games right for nine points.

Since I started fifteen rounds ago I have predicted 76 out of 150 games correctly for 118 points.  Lawrenson predicted 75 games correctly for 95 points. Merson predicted 71 games correctly for 99 points.

I will link to Lawrenson’s and Merson’s new predictions when they are published.  They will be found here and here.

Here are my predictions using the same rules outlined here. 

West Ham-Palace                            2-1

Burnley-Swansea                             1-2

Man U-Sunderland                         1-0

Newcastle-Aston Villa                    2-1

Stoke-Hull                                        2-1

West Brom-Southampton            0-1

Liverpool-Man City                        1-1

Arsenal-Everton                             2-1

The fact that there are only eight games this weekend does not affect my predictions.  However, I will have to adjust for the uneven number of games played for the next round of predictions and I will explain my adjustments at that time.

MAGIC NUMBERS

Here are our magic numbers for the entire League as explained here:

I am leaving the clubs in the same order so we can see where the big changes occur.

Chelsea                51

Man City              46

Man U                  38

Arsenal                 39

Tottenham          35

Liverpool             36

West Ham           30

Swansea              28

Stoke                    27

Newcastle           23

Everton               19

Palace                  18

Sunderland         16

West Brom         18

Aston Villa          13

Burnley               13

Hull                     18

QPR                     13

Leicester              9

The points total mathematically needed to avoid relegation dropped to 57 after Saturday's games.  Sunday's results didn't lower the number any further.

 

 

 

 

 

I Make Predictions (Round 26)

Last round Mark Lawrenson got seven games right for seven points.  His celebrity guest got five games right for seven points.  Merson got five games right for seven points.  I got five games right for seven points.

Since I started fourteen rounds ago I have predicted 71 out of 140 games correctly for 109 points.  Lawrenson predicted 70 games correctly for 88 points. Merson predicted 66 games correctly for 92 points.

I will link to Lawrenson’s and Merson’s new predictions when they are published.  They will be found here and here.

Here are my predictions using the same rules outlined here.
 

Aston Villa-Stoke                             0-1

Chelsea-Burnley                              1-0

Palace-Arsenal                                 1-2

Hull-QPR                                           2-1

Sunderland-West Brom                 1-1

Swansea-Man U                              1-2

Man City-Newcastle                       2-1

Spurs-West Ham                             2-1

Everton-Leicester                            2-1

Southampton-Liverpool                2-1

MAGIC NUMBERS

Here are Southampton's magic numbers for the entire League as explained here:

I am leaving the clubs in the same order so we can see where the big changes occur.

Chelsea               53

Man City             46

Man U                 41

Arsenal               39

Tottenham         37

Liverpool             36

West Ham           32

Swansea              28

Stoke                    27

Newcastle           26

Everton                21

Palace                  21

Sunderland         18

West Brom         20

Aston Villa           16

Burnley                 15

Hull                        18

QPR                       16

Leicester              11

RELEGATION AVOIDANCE

The points total mathematically needed to avoid relegation is still 58.  Because of the number of games the 13^th through 19^th placed clubs have to play against each other, it will drop after the next round unless these six clubs get one of a limited number of exact combinations of results which are way too complicated to delineate exactly but it requires Aston Villa or Burnley to win.

I Make Predictions (Round 25)

I guess I should have trusted my system’s prediction that there would be five draws—although there were actually six draws.  However, it predicts four draws this round and I am still skeptical.

Last round Mark Lawrenson got four games right for four points.  His celebrity guest got two games right for two points.  Merson got five games right for nine points.  I got seven games right for 13 points. 

Since I started thirteen rounds ago I have predicted 66 out of 130 games correctly for 102 points.  Lawrenson predicted 63 games correctly for 81 points. Merson predicted 61 games correctly for 85 points.  I am starting to pull ahead.

I will link to Lawrenson’s and Merson’s new predictions when they are published.  They will be found here and here.

Here are my predictions using the same rules outlined here. 

Arsenal-Leicester                             1-0

Hull-Aston Villa                                1-1

Sunderland-QPR                              2-1

Liverpool-Spurs                               1-1

Chelsea-Everton                              2-1

Man U-Burnley                                1-0

Southampton-West Ham              2-1

Stoke-Man City                                1-2

Palace-Newcastle                            1-1

West Brom-Swansea                      1-1

MAGIC NUMBERS

Here are Southampton's magic numbers for the entire League as explained here.  I am leaving the clubs in the same order so we can see where the changes occur.

Chelsea               54

Man City             47

Man U                 42

Arsenal                40

Tottenham          41

Liverpool             37

West Ham           35

Swansea              32

Stoke                    31

Newcastle           29

Everton                25

Palace                  24

Sunderland         22

West Brom         21

Aston Villa          20

Burnley                19

Hull                       18

QPR                      17

Leicester             15

The points total mathematically needed to avoid relegation is still 58.  It might drop to 57 after the next round.  If the bottom teams keep losing it will start dropping more noticeably by the end of the month.

Edited:  9 February 2015 to correct slight demonstrations of my inability to count to five.

Southampton’s Magic Numbers

I do not know whether the magic number concept is used in English sports.  I certainly haven’t seen it used in reference to Southampton before but I think the concept will provide some guidance as to what Southampton has left to do this season.

In American Baseball (and, less commonly, in other sports) the magic number is the combined number of wins by the team that is ahead and loses by the team that is behind necessary to guarantee that the leading team prevails.  Here is a Wikipedia article  on the subject.  The concept can be transferred to football so long as the possibility of draws is properly accounted for.  In this post I will generate Southampton’s magic numbers.  I will also look at what we need to do to qualify for European football and the Champions League and to avoid relegation--a near, but not mathematical, certainty.

MAGIC NUMBERS TEAM BY TEAM

Consider Arsenal who currently has exactly the same number of points as us.  They could, in theory win all 15 of their remaining games and end with 87 points. If they did that, we would need 88 points to finish ahead of them.  Of course, that is not possible but it does mean that our magic number is the 46 points it would take to get to 88.  If the combined total of the points we earn and the points Arsenal drops reaches 46, we are guaranteed to finish ahead of them.

In contrast, consider Leicester with only 17 points.   If they win all their remaining games they will end with 62 points.  That means our magic number to finish ahead of Leicester is 21 points.  Since it is very likely Leicester will drop 21 more points, we are effectively safe from them even though we have not mathematically clinched it yet.

Here are our magic numbers for the entire League:

Chelsea               57

Man City             52

Man U                 47

Arsenal                46

Tottenham         44

Liverpool             42

West Ham           40

Swansea              37

Stoke                    36

Newcastle            34

Everton                 30

Palace                   27

Sunderland          27

West Brom          26

Aston Villa           26

Burnley                24

Hull                       23

QPR                      23

Leicester              21

Goal differential can be ignored because these are the numbers needed to finish one point ahead of the other team.  If we can assume a favorable goal differential with any given team, the magic number for that team is one lower.

EUROPEAN QUALIFICATION

For the purposes of this article, I am assuming that fourth place qualifies for the Champions League and sixth place qualifies for the Europa League.  The latter assumption is based upon a belief that Chelsea will probably win the League Cup, but even if they do not Liverpool will at least finish in seventh place.  If Liverpool wins the League Cup and finishes eighth or lower, sixth place may not qualify depending on what happens in the FA Cup.   I am also ignoring the possibilities of English teams winning both the Europa League and the Champions League this year and both of those teams finishing outside the top four.

Magic numbers for European qualification are less clear cut than the magic numbers to beat individual teams.  Currently, our magic number to finish third is 47—the magic number to finish ahead of Manchester United.  However, that number will shift if Manchester United drops a lot of points and falls below fourth place in the table.

Currently, our magic number to guarantee finishing fourth is 46.  But this is misleading because Arsenal and Manchester United still have to play each other so one or both of them will drop points.  Effectively, the number is 45.

Our magic number to finish fifth is not really the 44 points it would take to finish ahead of Tottenham because they are playing Arsenal this weekend.  If they lose, the relevant number is the 42 points to finish ahead of Liverpool.  If they draw, the relevant number is 42, the number needed to finish ahead of both of them.  If they win then the number is 43 because Arsenal would be the team we need to beat for fifth place.  Therefore, our current effective magic number for fifth place is 43.

Sixth place is even more complicated.  Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United, and Tottenham all still have to play each other.  That is nine potential points for each club, but only 18 total points available for the four clubs.  If each club wins all their remaining games except against each other the highest lowest point total for the four clubs is 80 points.  We would need 39 points to finish ahead of that team so that is effectively our magic number for sixth place.

RELEGATION NUMBERS

In a Premier League season there are 380 games.  To determine how many points a club needs to avoid relegation at the start of the season, we assume that the two worst clubs lose all their games except against each other which do not matter for the purposes of this calculation.  That leaves 378 games or 1134 points.  If those points were split evenly among the remaining 18 teams that is 63 points each.  So 64 points would make a club mathematically safe from relegation.

There are three ways that number goes down during the season.  Each time one of the last two clubs in the table takes points from one of the other 18 teams, then number goes down.  Each times one of the top 18 teams draws a game, a point disappears and the number goes down.  Finally, when a team earns enough points to be mathematically safe, any extra points they earn are wasted and the number goes down. 

QPR and Leicester are 5-4-14 and 4-5-14 respectively.  QPR beat Leicester so their records against the rest of the league are 4-4-14 and 4-5-13.  This means that they have taken 24 points by winning games and 18 points by drawing games from the other clubs.  That leaves only 1092 points for the other 18 clubs.

These 18 clubs have drawn a total of 115.  However, 9 of those draws were against QPR or Leicester and have already been counted.  That leaves 106 draw results or 53 games that ended in a draw.  That is 53 more points lost leaving a total of 1039.  If those points were divided evenly among the 18 teams the result is 57.72 points per game.  Therefore, 58 points is mathematically safe while 57 points is not.

This number will continue to move down slowly in the next couple of weeks as clubs draw games and as the bottom two clubs gain points from the other clubs.  It will start to move downward more rapidly when clubs start earning points above the safety line.  If Chelsea, for example, wins their next two games they will have 59 points and the extra point will come off the total available for the other clubs.

This system of calculation breaks down once the 18^th place team can no longer reach the mathematical safety total—the total then becomes one more point than the 18^th place team can earn.   The situation becomes even more complicated when other bottom table clubs can no longer reach this safety level because you have to compensate for the points they will lose to each other.  At this point, the mathematically safe point total will drop more rapidly.  This is not yet a problem because all the bottom half teams can still reach 58 points—that won’t be true in a few more games.

Good Riddance Harry Redknapp

Plainly, Harry Redknapp is not very popular with Southampton fans.  The reasons for this are obvious—he managed Southampton when we went down in 2005 and he left Southampton abruptly the next season to return to Portsmouth and on the way out had the gall to refer to Portsmouth as his “spiritual home.”  Certainly, as described here, neither Redknapp nor Portsmouth acted like pillars of integrity.

My personal view of Harry Redknapp was unaffected by these shenanigans because I was not a Southampton fan back in those days.  The painful memories that are, undoubtedly, fresh in the minds of most Southampton fans are nothing more than second hand ancient history to me.

Instead, my first awareness of Redknapp was his management of Tottenham in 2010-2011.  As I have described elsewhere (here), I became a Southampton fan in 2010.  Since it is virtually impossible to follow a League One team from the United States, I needed a Premier League club to follow while we remained in the lower leagues.  I chose Tottenham because my only two friends who paid any attention to the Premier League were both Tottenham fans.

2010-2011 was a good year to follow Tottenham.  They were doing well in the Champions League with Gareth Bale making things quite exciting.  Plus, I knew Bale came from Southampton so that was something anyway.

Initially, I was favorably impressed by Redknapp.  He seemed to be doing a good job and his public statements were often entertaining.  However, during the season I became disillusioned with him—not because of the quality of his managing, which I was not qualified to judge, but because of both the tax fraud allegations and his response to the English National Manager job opening. 

I found it particularly strange that he believed it was appropriate to so actively seek out the English job in the middle of a season where his club clearly needed his full attention.  Yet, he insisted that there was no disruptive effect on the team arising out of his pursuit of the England job.  This seemed crazy to me, but it could have been true.  Or so I thought right up until he did not get the English job and started to claim that it would be disruptive to the team if he were not offered a new long term contract.  (See here.) No one with a shred of integrity would make two such contradictory claims.

However, I was much more offended by his financial corruption.  I am not referring to the tax fraud charges themselves.  After all he was acquitted of those charges—a result of which I am skeptical just like everyone else.  (It certainly appears that famous people get one free acquittal in criminal proceedings. See, for example, O. J. Simpson.)  Instead, I was appalled by the freely acknowledged fact that he received a cut of his club’s transfer profits.    As briefly summarized in an 8 February 2012 Guardian article by Sam Jones and David Conn:

“After Crouch was sold, Portsmouth paid Redknapp a bonus of £115,473, representing 5% of the net profit, with PAYE tax and national insurance deducted. Mandaric acknowledged that Redknapp was unhappy with that figure as he felt he was due 10% of the profits because he had had to work hard to convince his boss to sign Crouch in the first place.” (Link here.  Additional information here.)

In my view, there is simply no justification for the manager of a football club being paid a share of the transfer profits.  It is a complete and utterly irredeemable conflict of interest.

Giving the manager a share of profits gives him an incentive to sell players that the club might be better off keeping.  If a player could, for example, be sold for a ten million pound profit the manager should make the transfer decision based upon what is best for the club. If the manager is not entitled to a share of the profits, he will look at whether the net transfer proceeds could be used to strengthen the club or whether the club would be better off keeping the player.  On the other hand, if the manager is going to receive 10% of the profits, it would be difficult for him to resist making the sale, pocketing the million pounds, and hoping to do as best as he can with the remaining players and funds.

This kind of profit sharing might well lead to transfer decisions being made based upon the ability to turn a short term profit rather than the real needs of the club. Given the relatively short tenure of modern managers, the chance to earn a quick share of transfer profits would almost always be more appealing than hanging onto the player because the manager might not be around to benefit either from the greater long term transfer profit or from the years of quality play that the unsold player could provide to the club.

Quite simply, any club that gives its manager—or any other club employee—a share in transfer profits is crazy because it is encouraging corrupt behavior.  Employees should be fairly compensated to do their best work for their employer.  If the employee is unhappy with the amount of compensation, he should seek a raise or a better job elsewhere.  He should not seek to skim profits to the detriment of his employer and, in the football context, to the detriment of the club’s chances of winning on the field.

I have no idea how common this practice is.  I certainly hope that Ralph Koeman and Les Reed are not personally profiting from last summer’s transfer activities.  I doubt that they are.  Given the intimate relationship between clubs and fan, any such transactions should be publically disclosed.  However, transfer profit sharing by employees simply ought to be prohibited by rule (and maybe by law).

I generally oppose abusing players and coaches from visiting teams, but I know that Redknapp is always going to suffer such abuse at St. Mary’s.  Given my feelings about his integrity, I am not particularly bothered by that.  Therefore, in a sense, it is too bad that Redknapp is not still managing QPR so he could be properly abused.  Very likely, the inevitability of that abuse might explain his decision to resign now rather than wait another week.

However, his departure is for the best.  Clearly, he was not doing a good job of managing QPR.   In this era of Financial Fair Play, spending way too much of the owner’s money is no longer a viable strategy for success—not that he spent it very well anyway.  He has once again deserted a team in its time of need and, as I have explained, I think little of his integrity. English football would be well served if QPR manager was Harry Redknapp’s last job. Good Riddance.

I Make Predictions (Round 24)

Last round Mark Lawrenson got five games right for seven points.  His celebrity guest got six games right for twelve points.  Merson got four games right for six points.  I got six games right for six points.

Since I started twelve rounds ago I have predicted 59 out of 120 games correctly for 89 points.  Lawrenson predicted 59 games correctly for 77 points. Merson predicted 56 games correctly for 76 points.

I will link to Lawrenson’s and Merson’s new predictions when they are published.  They will be found here and here.

Here are my predictions using the same rules outlined here. 

Spurs-Arsenal                                  1-1

Aston Villa-Chelsea                         0-1

Leicester-Palace                              1-2

Man City-Hull                                  1-0

QPR-Southampton                         0-1

Swansea-Sunderland                     2-1

Everton-Liverpool                           1-1

Burnley-West Brom                        1-1

Newcastle-Stoke                             1-1

West Ham-Man U                            1-1

The system picked a lot of draws this weekend which simply means that there are a lot of games between clubs close to each other in the table where the home club is below the visitor.  Since I don’t really expect five draws this weekend, I expect a bad round of results for my predictions.

Finally, according to my calculations a club still needs 58 points to mathematically avoid relegation.  Of course, in reality much less will be needed.  I will update this with each prediction post.