Championship Week 28: The stats behind Stuart Pearce's sacking and will Dougie Freedman be any better?

Stuart Pearce: Buried under a mountain of early season expectations

So the biggest news this week in the Championship has probably been the weird goings-on at Nottingham Forest.

First the club sacked manager Stuart Pearce, then replaced him almost immediately with Dougie Freedman which was swiftly followed by the exit of chief executive Paul Faulkner and all Pearce’s backroom staff - assistant manager Steve Wigley, first-team coach Brian Eastick, goalkeeper coach Tim Flowers, head of recruitment John Marshall and even physio Dave Galley.

That is one heck of a clear out!

Pearce was sacked with Forest sitting in 12^th position well out of the playoff battle with little hope of promotion.

Owner Fawaz Al Hasawi blamed poor recent form for sacking Pearce, but I’d argue it was over-performing at the start of the season (which saw the club lead the division for several early weeks) that paid for Pearce.

Position	Team	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Goals For	Goals Against	Goal Difference	Points
1	Bournemouth	28	16	6	6	59	28	31	54
2	Derby	28	16	6	6	52	25	27	54
3	Middlesbrough	28	15	8	5	43	18	25	53
4	Ipswich	28	14	9	5	46	27	19	51
5	Brentford	28	15	4	9	44	37	7	49
6	Watford	28	14	5	9	56	33	23	47
7	Wolves	28	12	9	7	33	35	-2	45
8	Norwich	28	12	8	8	50	34	16	44
9	Blackburn	28	10	9	9	38	38	0	39
10	Sheffield Weds	28	9	11	8	21	25	-4	38
11	Birmingham	28	9	10	9	31	39	-8	37
12	Nott'm Forest	28	8	10	10	37	40	-3	34
13	Cardiff	28	9	7	12	36	42	-6	34
14	Bolton	28	9	7	12	33	39	-6	34
15	Fulham	28	10	4	14	41	49	-8	34
16	Reading	28	9	7	12	33	42	-9	34
17	Huddersfield	28	9	7	12	36	47	-11	34
18	Charlton	28	6	15	7	25	35	-10	33
19	Leeds	28	8	8	12	30	39	-9	32
20	Rotherham	28	6	12	10	26	36	-10	30
21	Brighton	28	6	11	11	30	36	-6	29
22	Millwall	28	6	9	13	26	44	-18	27
23	Wigan	28	4	10	14	26	36	-10	22
24	Blackpool	28	4	8	16	22	50	-28	20

Looking at the stats, Forest are one of the teams where it appears fairly safe to say they are what they are – a solidly mid-table side.

A more than decent overall shots share (Corsi/TSR) score of 0.54, but a just below average shots on target share of 0.489.

Put those two figures together and, all other things being pretty much equal, Forest are smack in the middle of the table – an average Championship side.

Position	Team	Shots for total	Shots against total	Corsi/TSR	shots on target for total	shots on target against total	Shots on target share	Shooting % For	Save %	PDO
11	Birmingham	380	445	0.461	120	143	0.456	25.84	72.72	98.55
9	Blackburn	436	385	0.531	141	134	0.513	26.95	71.65	98.6
24	Blackpool	312	455	0.407	99	139	0.416	22.23	64.03	86.26
14	Bolton	351	429	0.45	114	142	0.445	28.94	72.53	101.47
1	Bournemouth	461	335	0.579	167	96	0.635	35.33	70.83	106.16
5	Brentford	370	408	0.476	141	137	0.507	31.21	72.99	104.21
21	Brighton	423	364	0.538	120	106	0.531	24.99	66.04	91.03
13	Cardiff	357	415	0.462	114	126	0.475	31.58	66.66	98.24
18	Charlton	303	438	0.409	94	135	0.41	26.6	74.07	100.67
2	Derby	363	370	0.495	128	120	0.516	40.64	79.16	119.8
15	Fulham	357	435	0.451	118	136	0.465	34.75	63.98	98.72
17	Huddersfield	409	402	0.504	140	131	0.517	25.71	64.13	89.84
4	Ipswich	403	395	0.505	134	109	0.551	34.34	75.23	109.57
19	Leeds	335	425	0.441	94	128	0.423	31.93	69.54	101.46
3	Middlesbrough	420	308	0.577	134	88	0.604	32.09	79.54	111.64
22	Millwall	361	373	0.492	104	131	0.443	25	66.41	91.41
8	Norwich	467	288	0.618	149	100	0.598	33.55	66.01	99.56
12	Nott'm Forest	415	353	0.54	117	122	0.489	31.63	67.22	98.85
16	Reading	365	351	0.51	113	118	0.489	29.19	64.42	93.61
20	Rotherham	395	392	0.502	120	114	0.513	21.66	68.42	90.08
10	Sheffield Weds	376	342	0.524	99	104	0.488	21.21	75.95	97.16
6	Watford	413	404	0.505	148	124	0.544	37.83	73.39	111.22
23	Wigan	342	336	0.504	95	115	0.452	27.38	68.7	96.07
7	Wolves	393	359	0.523	113	118	0.489	29.2	70.34	99.53

When we look at the course of the season however, we can see the reason for their impressive start – a massive PDO (“luck”) boost that held above or around 120 (100 is average) for the first 13 weeks.

True, the first few weeks Forest appeared to have some very impressive shot share numbers, but these proved unsustainable early on, and as they dropped to their current roughly league average levels by week eight, the slide set in.

This slide turned into a severe drop as the PDO score came tumbling down and by week 16 they were safely inhabiting upper mid-table obscurity.

We can also see from this graph that Pearce’s side have actually improved their shots on target share as the season has gone on, although the shots on target share has remained stubbornly at or below league average of 0.500.  

So I’d argue that if Forest had not benefited from that early season PDO boost but meandered along in mid-table most of the season, Pearce would probably still be in the job – perhaps it’s not so good to have a fast start to the season.

And what of Pearce’s replacement - Dougie Freedman?

Has Al Hawasi at least done himself a favour and got someone better?

The short answer is I’m not convinced he has.

Freedman spent basically two seasons (split between three actual seasons) in charge at Bolton Wanderers. Last season, his only full season in charge at the Reebok Stadium, he took the Trotters to 14^th place with an overall shot share of 0.481, a shots on target share of 0.518 and a PDO score of 97.52 – a little below average.

This year Freedman’s team started off the year poorly and he was sacked after ten games with the team in 23^rd place and boasting a horrible 0.406 Corsi/TSR share, 0.358 shots on target share and 89.44 PDO score.

While the low PDO score is probably unfortunate, the rest of the (small) sample is pretty damning.

Given that those fixtures contained a fairly even spread of teams who are now battling it out for promotion, relegation or just mid-table obscurity it is hard to feel Freedman was the victim of horrific scheduling.

 

And his replacement at Bolton, Neil Lennon has come in and done a pretty decent job with largely the same group of players given the limited potential movements outside the transfer windows.

The Trotters are now where they finished last year with overall a 0.45 shot share, a 0.445 shots on target share and PDO of 101.47.

You can see from the graph the turnaround begins almost immediately after Freedman is sacked.

Lennon now boasts a personal record of 0.477 shot share, 0.497 (basically league average) shots on target share, and a 107.81 PDO score.

Sure, he has benefited from the PDO bump that Freedman missed, but in this case it’s probably deserved.

Will Freedman be the one to profit from a PDO boost this time around – we’ll have to see, but I’m not overly convinced Forest have found their long term success story in the Scot.