So here we have it, the long awaited GrantaZola Index, published in full. All along, I have maintained that Grant inherited a mess and that, of the two, he was the better manager. True I was forced to accept the lesser of two evils but, nevertheless, better than his disastrous predecessor.
But hang on, I can hear the piglets squealing at the back of the barn, how does that work then? We ended up with more points last season and avoided the drop, whereas this season we have finished rock bottom. Well, as Lineker pointed out, all three teams relegated this season would have stayed up with their points totals last season. The fact is, as I have maintained all season, that it was harder to avoid the drop this season because the three teams who came up were much stronger than the three teams who went down. 38 points is usually enough to survive, but two teams went down with 39 points this season!
Want the proof of this logic, it is easy. Assume three teams are so weak that they lose to every other team and draw all their matches with each other. All three of these teams end up on 4 points. By virtue of beating these three teams, the side finishing fourth from bottom survive even if they lose every other game! So a club survives on 18 points beating only the three useless, winless teams at the bottom, and survive by a massive 14 points! Now 18 points would ordinarily guarantee bottom place!
And that is why Zola's team survived and Grant's didn't. Zola's side beat Hull, Burnley and Portsmouth at home and drew away to Hull and Portsmouth. That was 11 points taken from the three hopeless teams at the bottom. And only with the aid of these gimme points did his side survive. Sadly, Newcastle, West Brom and Blackpool were made of altogether sterner stuff, and that was our undoing.
So compare the results of Grant's team against the sides that Zola's team played last season and the final points tally is Grant 27 and Zola 21. There is a 3 point anomaly because Grant had gone before we played Sunderland.
Don't believe me? Here's the head by head outcome:
Wolves A Zola 3 Grant 1
Spurs H Zola 0 Grant 3
Blackburn A Zola 1 Grant 1
Wigan A Zola 0 Grant 0
Liverpool H Zola 0 Grant 3
Bolton A Zola 0 Grant 0
Man City A Zola 0 Grant 0
Fulham H Zola 1 Grant 1
Stoke A Zola 0 Grant 1
Arsenal H Zola 1 Grant 0
Sunderland A Zola 1 Grant 0
Villa H Zola 3 Grant 0
Everton H Zola 0 Grant 1
Birmingham A Zola 0 Grant 1
Chelsea H Zola 1 Grant 0
Tottenham A Zola 0 Grant 1
Villa A Zola 1 Grant 0
Blackburn H Zola 1 Grant 1
Birmingham H Zola 3 Grant 0
Bolton H Zola 0 Grant 0
Chelsea A Zola 0 Grant 0
Arsenal A Zola 0 Grant 0
Wolves H Zola 0 Grant 3
Stoke H Zola 0 Grant 3
Everton A Zola 1 Grant 1
Liverpool A Zola 0 Grant 0
Wigan H Zola 3 Grant 3
Fulham A Zola 0 Grant 3
Man City H Zola 1 Grant 0
Total: Zola 21 Grant 27
So there you have it, conclusive proof. Grant's points total would have kept us up last season anyway. Zola only kept us up because Burnley, Hull and Portsmouth were so weak, proved by the inability of any of them to finish in the top 6 of this season's Championship. Yes Grant proved to be a cnut but not as much of a cnut as the cnut he followed!
The only conclusive prove from that is that HF a complete *****!
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing scientific about your index. You are not comparing like with like. The only fact that matters is that Grant got us relegated and Zola hasn't. End of story!
Remember HF, "it is better to be thought a fool than to speak (or in your case write) and remove all doubt".
ReplyDeleteErm, I see - so you've decided not to factor any games from Zola's first season? Oh of course not that we have upset the index.
ReplyDelete23:11 of course he wouldn't do that! that would through a right spanner in the works.
ReplyDeleteOh just one thing, can you keep this post going as I think it will get interesting.... and please don't bury it when it goes against you with more posts - let's keep it up at the top for at least a couple of days so we can enjoy all the answers, banter and berating.
Cheers
BaitMan
Not really relevant my friend. That would just show how Zola took over a successful team and systematically ruined them! What do you want me to do, show how the longer Zola was in charge, the worse we became? We can do that if you like but I'm not sure it would help your case at all. I'm not singing Grant's praises here, I'm highlighting the mess he inherited.
ReplyDeleteZola didn't inherit a mess as the results for a very narrow window in his first season show. Remember we were in 4th when Zola took over and by mid December, we were 4th from bottom just a point ahead of Tottenham! 26 points then came from 17 games. That run apart, we showed relegation form through-out Zola's time in charge, based on 38 points to survive. That run apart, he always averaged less than a point a game!
So how did he turn a team capable of finishing 9th under Turds into a team with relegation stamped into their soul?
We finished 9th under Turds? when did that happen? I missed it.
ReplyDeleteOops, was it tenth. Shit! Zola was brilliant then, took a team from tenth to brink of relegation.
ReplyDeleteGrantazola?... This smells worse than gorgonzola. Time to smell the coffee HF.
ReplyDeleteThe fact remains Zola kept us up and Grant got us relegated:
Z=0 - G=-£40million. This is what the record books will show and what the target would have been at the start of the season.
Even though Zola accumulated more points last year you have given Grant another massage by conveniently excluding the results of the bottom 3 teams and excluding the Sunderland game. Were those teams that bad last year? Do you recall Portsmouth's FA cup exploits?
Looking at the table Man U won the league this year with 80 points but came second last year with 85 points. Chelsea got 86 points this year but only 71 this year, and generally the top teams dropped more points against the lesser teams. Should this be factored in to your index?
At the bottom Wigan(42:36) and Wolves (40:38) both picked up more points last year than this year yet finished in similar positions.
Using your logic they would both have been expected to get 18 points from the 3 "crap teams" last year so their improvement has been remarkable.
No, what has happenned is that the top teams have slipped a bit whilst others have improved and West Ham under Grant have been left behind.
There is also the small matter of the transfer budget each manager was given. I reckon Zola would have fared better with the likes of Keane, Bridge, Hitz and Ba.
Your stats. are a poor attempt to try and support your previous views which smelt wrong at the time and are now completely rotten.
Zola finished ninth - Turds was well gone by then, can't you remember?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how Zola influenced a team of eleven men though, especially as they all started well after him, perhaps you could enlighten us?
1. Boffin,
2. Jacobsen,
3. Bridge.
4. Read,
5. Barrerra,
6. O'Neill,
7. Hitz,
8. Obinna,
9. Piquionne,
10. Keane
11. Ba.
BaitMan
Blimey - I thought Sav was on your side - well done you've turned a loyal supporter against you.
ReplyDeleteYou can be a bit of plank HF. I even deleted your blog from the link. Anyway the dark depressed banter that goes on at times is brilliant. Who gives a monkeys who was better Zola or Grant? They both Sh**e. Anyway top stuff
ReplyDeleteWhat a load of bollocks! What you smoking HF? You may have that great college education but guess what you don't have mate.....common bloody sense. Please bang that "no common sense" head of your's against a friggin wall. Maybe then you might come back to reality and awaken from that stupor.
ReplyDelete0029, I agree with you. The middle range teams and those in the bottom half of the table HAVE improved, that's shown in their results against the top teams! Tht's the point! And yet despite this, Grant's team has still taken more points off them than Zola's team. Thanks for backing up the argument!
ReplyDeleteOf course you can't compare results against Hull with results against Newcastle; they are totally different teams! That's where we have come unstuck this year! Last season Zola's side picked up 9 gimme home points, this season we managed 2 home points aginst the 3 promoted teams. Add another 7 points to our total and we would be safe!
00:58 yes a whole team of men somehow influence by someone who was long gone when they started.
ReplyDeleteHas Stani posted, but not be allowed by HF?
I'd just like to add my pennys worth to this...
ReplyDeleteGrant should have gone earlier than he did. He didn't show anything more in his knowledge that he'd already shown at Portsmouth.
Zola wouldn't have been able to do much more with his time in the game. He came to us too early on with no real management experience. Being a great player doesn't mean you're going to be a great manager!
Management takes time and you can't be expected to do great things with your first tenure.
Lets just say this one thing... BOTH MANAGERS WERE SHITE!!!! One only just kept us up, thanks to other teams being worse, the other relegated us because he'd made us the worst...
Christ almighty you really are stretching things here with your selective stats.
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty much irrelevant because both Zola and Grant are crap managers. However, at least Zola had a bit of passion about him. Grant is the most miserable sour faced cunt I have ever seen.
The simple facts are these - Zola kept us up. Grant didn't. Zola's team finished on 34 points with a GD of minus 20. Grant's team finished on 33 points with a GD of minus 27.
And don't give us this bullshit about the Sunderland game not counting. Grant may well have left and Keen may well have picked the team but they were Grant's players and from a managerial point of view, the situation we were in was down to him.
Whichever way you look at it, Grant is the worst full-time manager in our recent history.
Shame you don't seem to get any time at work to use the internet... are you out on the road, a la Some people make a fortune, Other's earn a mint
ReplyDeleteMy old man don't earn much
In fact....he's flippin'.....skint, Oh, my old man's a dustman, He wears a dustman's hat, He wears cor blimey trousers, And he lives in a council flat, He looks a proper narner, In his great big hob nailed boots, He's got such a job to pull em up, That he calls them daisy roots....
Rename blog:
ReplyDeleteWest Ham United - HF's Gone Crazy
What a pointless exercise. Grant was sh*t and I don't give a flying rat's a*se about Zola. We have been relegated. Let's all forget about Zola, forget about Grant, and start worrying like hell who these porno plonkers are going to put in charge of our club next.
HF,
ReplyDeleteI've written a response in the time that I had and emailed it to you. Please put it up when you get the chance.
Yes I've always wondered why he works where he can't get on the internet - we all can manage it apart from HF - he's probably the tea boy and scared of his boss - Mmmwwwaaaahhhhhaaaaa haaaaaaaa
ReplyDelete2001, I can go 8 hours without accessing this blog; unlike you it seems. Do you really find it that compelling?
ReplyDelete8 hours chained to a lathe no doubt - Mmmmwwwaahhhaaaaa haaaaaaaa - how many toilet breaks do they give you?
ReplyDeleteI always new he was a blue collar worker - probably a bus driver or something.......
ReplyDelete