Recruiting a New Manager - "The Wolves Way"

Recruiting a

New Manager

– “The Wolves

Way”

Ethan Diggory - @scoutingww

Outline

Outline

Welcome to a new piece of analysis in which I try and identify a new manager for Wolves – with a twist. The reason for

this analysis is fairly self-explanatory with Wolves starting the season winless and on the brink of Gary O’Neil losing

his job at the helm of the club.

For those who don’t know me, I am a second-year student at the University of Derby studying Performance Analysis

and Coaching Science as I aim to land a role in football as an analyst at the end of my degree. This piece will help

towards my portfolio as an analyst so if you do enjoy this piece, be sure to follow my personal Twitter @DiggoryEthan

and my football scouting-based Instagram account @scoutingww as well as sharing this piece on social media.

Now, to address what do I mean by ”The Wolves Way”?

I thought about doing a basic piece of analysis as to who should replace GON looking at the typical options provided

by the bookies and ranking them based on the season they had last year. However, after reading a tweet by a

Manchester United fan on twitter, I had some inspiration. The fan in question was moaning that they still couldn’t

identify Erik Ten Hag’s style of play after over two years at the club which lead to me asking myself a question: what is

the typical Wolves style of play?

So, I have decided to identify managers that could take over from GON that play a similar style of football to the

modern Wolves team in the Fosun era, but crucially a manager that I think will make a stark improvement on recent

campaigns.

Firstly, I needed to find out what ”The Wolves Way” looks like.

What does

“The Wolves

Way” look like?

“The Wolves Way”

The basic premise of identifying how Wolves have played was to browse through FBref at the past 6 Premier

League seasons (18-19, 19-20, 20-21, 21-22, 22-23, 23-24) and seeing what metrics we excelled at and which we

underperformed at in all of those seasons. I denoted excelling as having a mean rank of above 5 th out of the 20

teams and underperforming as below 15 th out of the 20 teams.

In terms of the metrics that we excelled at, there were 4: Long Passes Attempted, Switches, Tackles in the

Defensive Third and Take-Ons Attempted. In terms of the metrics we underperformed at, there were 5: Passes

Attempted by the GK, Defensive Actions Outside of the Penalty Area, Passes Into the Penalty Area, Dead Ball

Passes and Tackles in the Attacking Third.

From here, I averaged out the actual metrics themselves to find a mean statistic for both the positive metrics

and the negative metrics that can be compared to other teams’ seasons from last year to identify a manager that

will replace GON. Therefore, I had just one metric to compare to the Wolves team of last season for positive

metrics and negative metrics.

I also calculated the standard deviation for each individual metric and also the standard deviation multiplied

by two as to identify managers that may have missed out due to being of a similar style but not quite as close to

Wolves under GON last season. In addition to this, the average age of the squad and manager themselves was

averaged to identify a rough idea for the type of manager that the club would recruit.

Now, I’ll discuss the methodology for comparing the managers to GON’s 23-24 season.

Methodology

Methodology

The teams that were selected for the analysis were from the usual Top 5 Leagues in Europe as well as the Liga Portugal,

Eredivisie, EFL Championship and a selection of teams managed by free agent managers who have been out of work past last

season.

After this point, each of their metrics previously mentioned was inputted into excel and from that the positive metric average

score and negative metric average score was calculated for comparison. This involved a simple mean of the statistics ranked 5 th

or above and then 15 th or below.

Subsequently, three groups of managers were collected by filtering the average scores: those who were above/below both

average scores calculated via the mean, above/below both average scores calculated via the mean including one standard

deviation either way and finally above/below both average scores calculated via the mean including two standard deviations

either way.

The candidates would be those with a score of closer to 1, meaning that they are that percentage similar to Wolves stylistically.

To identify the strong candidates to take over at Wolves from these lists and eliminate those of a lower calibre than would be

needed for a Premier League job, two statistics were considered: xG difference and places away from Wolves in the Opta Power

Rankings. Those with a significantly negative xG difference and/or being too far above/below Wolves in the Opta Power

Rankings were removed from the list of potential candidates. Those left either made up the Top 5 or the Honourable Mentions

lists.

Those two groups will be presented now, with reasons given for the Honourable Mentions not quite making the cut and

comparisons between “The Wolves Way” for the Top 5 Choices in brackets next to the information.

Honourable

Mentions

Honourable Mentions

Would Want a Bigger Job/Already at a Big Club

• Eric Roy – Brest

• Peter Bosz – PSV

• Massimiliano Allegri – Free Agent (Data from Juventus)

• Maurizio Sarri – Free Agent (Data from Lazio)

• Roger Schmidt - Free Agent (Data from Benfica)

Would be Too Big of a Job at this Stage

• Marti Cifuentes – QPR

• Rogier Meijer – NEC Nijmegen

Other Reasons

• Will Still – RC Lens (Data was from Reims and would be a good choice but just moved clubs)

• Bo Henriksen – Mainz 05 (Scored relatively poorly on the positive average scores compared to the Top 5)

• Igor Tudor – Free Agent (Data from Lazio but missed out on Top 5 due to relatively poor average scores in

comparison)

Top 5 Choices

Choice 5 – Edin Terzic – The Ambitious

• Club: Borussia Dortmund (Currently a Free Agent)

• Age: 41 (46.8)

• “The Wolves Way” Score: 0.87

• Win Percentage: 52.9% (34.2%)

• Points Per Game: 1.85 (1.21)

• xG Difference: +11.5 (-21)

• Preferred Formation: 4231 (343)

• Average Age of Squad: 26.8 (26.6)

Although slightly unrealistic, I think that Terzic would be a

phenomenal manager for this Wolves team. Reaching a

Champions League final playing a similar style to Wolves

shows that it does work if used well. Only made it to 5 th

due to him being a little above our level, however I think

the allure of the Premier League could attract him to us.

Choice 4 – Ruben Baraja – The Wildcard

• Club: Valencia

• Age: 49 (46.8)




• xG Difference: -4.5 (-21)



Baraja is a name that I haven’t heard of in the world of

coaching until this analysis, but I think he possesses the

attributes to be a very successful manager at Molineux.

His clear ability to work with a younger squad excites me

with the direction our recruitment is going in at the

moment. Would be a potentially very good replacement

for Gary O’Neil.

Choice 3 – Ole Werner – The Project

• Club: Werder Bremen

• Age: 36 (46.8)







Despite being only 36, Ole Werner has a lot of experience

as a manager at a top level in the Bundesliga. I think he

could be a very god project manager for Wolves of that

was the direction that they wanted to go in. Plays a very

similar style whilst playing a 3 at the back fills me with

hope that he would adapt quite well with the squad.

Choice 2 – David Moyes – The Experienced

• Club: West Ham (Currently a Free Agent)

• Age: 61 (46.8)







Moyes is a man that needs no introduction and would be a

very sensible experienced choice to take over the helm.

European success with The Hammers brings me great joy

and I believe that he would be a roaring success at

Wolves should he take over. I think West Ham’s trajectory

under his guidance has shown that it can be done with a

mid-table Premier League club.

Choice 1 – Graham Potter – The Sensible

• Club: Brighton – Last Full Season of Data (Currently a

Free Agent)

• Age: 49 (46.8)




• xG Difference: +3.3 (-21)



By far and away the clear favourite to take over at the club

and ticks almost every box. Sensible age, similar style,

worked wonders in the Premier League before as well as

being available right now. In my opinion, it should be

Potter that is offered the job at Molineux should O’Neil be

relieved of his duties at Wolves.

Conclusions

Conclusions

The Top 5 choices for manager all have their own strengths and weaknesses when considering what they would bring to the table at

Wolves.

For Edin Terzic, it would be an ambitious appointment that would show an intent to become a serious challenger for the European spots

in the league however would most likely want a bigger job than that at Molineux.

For Ruben Baraja, Wolves would be getting a relative unknown in the worldwide coaching world who could prove to be a smart option to

hand over the reins to at Wolves despite not having the greatest of CVs in terms of experience.

For Ole Werner, the option of a fantastic young manager to build a team around could be seen as an exciting choice to members of the

Wolves board although he may lack the maturity to lead a dressing room in the Premier League.

For David Moyes, you get a “does what it says on the tin” option in that he would provide a proven track record of getting results and

success in English football but may be considered too old for Wolves in line with the average age of previous appointments.

For Graham Potter, he provides a steady and sensible approach to his job that I am sure would be a sensation among members of the

Molineux crowd whilst playing in a similar style that is more progressive than current. Though, taking a year out of the game could be

seen as worrying to some.

As alluded to, I think that Graham Potter should be the next manager at Wolves should Gary O’Neil be sacked during the next few weeks

as I write this. Every box has been ticked other than not playing “The Wolves Way” as strongly as David Moyes for example. However, this

is due to Potter’s Brighton playing much more progressive which lead to a lower number overall for the negative average score metric.

If you have made it this far thank you very much for taking the time to read it. It has taken a little while for me to write but I hope that I

have got across some ideas and potential management targets that I would love to see brought to the club. If you have any feedback,

positive or negative, feel free to message me @DiggoryEthan or @scoutingww on Twitter/X.

Recruiting a New Manager - "The Wolves Way"

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