AB-solutely Dire Statistics

Ultimately, regardless of their style of play, transfer dealings or ability to manage the players or the media, a football manager lives by their results. Win loads of games and trophies and almost all will be forgiven. But frankly Adrian Boothroyd’s don’t add up to much.

Looking at his earlier managerial career at Watford and Colchester his stats are actually pretty good – nothing outstanding but not bad at all. With over 200 games experience, he averaged a 40% win rate – way above the average for CCFC’s history of about 34%.  

Boothroyd also averaged just under 1.5 points per game, or around 69 points per season, near the magical 70 the club seem to be aiming for and again much higher than the Sky Blue average of 1.25. 

Looking through the previous managers, the only people who seem to better this are esteemed figures like Harry Storer, Jimmy Hill and George Curtis –two of whom delivered something in terms of tangible success.  Since relegation Nilsson and Black have better records – both popular managers who had the City playing decent football and many would have liked to have seen given more time or interfered with less. 

But ultimately what he’s done previously is of little consequence – it’s how he’s done whilst he’s been here that matters, and after the Hull game, AB’s stats read:

P 39, W 12, D 8, L 19 

These show that Boothroyd has won only 30% of his games. Of all the permanent managers since relegation only Coleman and McAllister have a worse win percentage. 

Even more worrying (and probably surprising) is that he’s lost almost 50% of the games he’s been in charge for – that’s worse than any manager since relegation and amazing considering we’re supposedly a lot harder to beat now. In terms of points per game AB manages to achieve only 1.13 – again the lowest of any manager since relegation.  

Add to that a run of only 1 win in 17 league and cup games which makes Chris Coleman’s 11 match winless run look like a high point (and which Boothroyd himself said would never happen again). 

In fact, having looked through the stats of every manager the club has ever had, it’s possible to argue that the only two people with worse overall records are William Clayton and Harry Pollitt post World War I!