Do The Oddsmakers Under Or Over Value Premier League Managers?
Published: 3rd March 2025
– Updated: 3rd March 2025
Do some Premier League managers have a tendency to be undervalued by the betting markets? And how should we assess such over and under performance against bookmaker odds? Today Mark Taylor investigates.
Much of the analysis of football teams revolves around the actions and perceived abilities of the players on the field. But the greatest potential influence on a team's performance and therefore their results may lie with the manager. Not only does he select the side, decide on tactical approaches or changes during the match, he also is largely responsible for buying and selling his squad.
Therefore, it is an interesting exercise to see if a manager can consistently achieve returns from his team that is over and above those expected from a team similar standing. Or are the talent levels of the managers in the Premiership of such similar quality that very little difference exists between their achievements once we allow for the resource based differences between sides.
And more importantly, is the impact of the manager fully accounted for in the quoted odds.
Palace With And Without Pulis
It is natural to be drawn to headline tenures of recent seasons. David Moyes' short reign at Manchester United was widely regarded as a failure, while Tony Pulis' equally short, but much more successful stay at Crystal Palace won him the League Manager's Association manager of the year award.
Following Moyes' departure United invested heavily in new talent, but Palace, both prior to and following Pulis' departure spent only modestly. So if we compare Palace's combined performances both with and without Pulis at the helm, under similar financial constraints, we may be able to quantify his impact.
Palace has played 51 Premiership games since their promotion in 2025/14, 27 games under Pulis, during which they won 41 points and 24 games without him at the club, gaining just 17 points. So these raw numbers do point to a talent to extract maximum reward from limited talent, as he had done previously at Stoke.
A more robust method would be to compare the expected number of points, based on bookmaker's odds for all of Palace's games and once again Pulis' abilities appear to shine through.
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