Thursday (tomorrow) night sees the final round of matches in another exciting season in Top 100. Shortly after 8:00pm UK time, we will know for sure (barring any River Plate/Dinamo Zagreb level on points, goal difference and goals scored shenanigans) who has won and lost, and who will be automatically sacked within the next few hours or days.
When Frank founded Top 100, and as far as I know, he made decisions about who got reappointed, who got offered a new club, and who stayed sacked. Later, if there was lots of interest in a club, he asked a secret panel of trusted managers to decide who got the job. When I took over ownership of Top 100 from Frank in S9, I inherited his secret panel, and we’ve used it more and more ever since, including in recent seasons under Beddows’ stewardship, to decide who should be reappointed or not.
There are some known problems with using a secret panel of managers.
- It’s a LOT of extra work – something that Beddows was particularly good at, I have to say.
- It takes a lot longer to do.
- While we always tried to select managers based on their perceived trustworthiness, impartiality and wisdom, it’s arguable that it just comes down to being a popularity contest.
- Less popular, but arguably more deserving managers often get repeatedly overlooked.
- People always complain about the panel decisions, particularly when it comes to taking into account managers’ achievements and activity.
I’m always interested in doing less work, quicker, and in making decisions that are provably fair and justified, and based on our Top 100 Rules that have been (mostly) unchanged and on the blog since S1.
This season, we’re going to decide who stays sacked, who gets reappointed, and who gets offered a new club using the following criteria (from the Top 100 Rules on Manager Sackings, and Malcolm’s Stats – which show where a club was expected to finish at the start of the season):
- Has the manager indicated that they wish to stay?
- Were they appointed mid-season?
- Was the club promoted last season?
- Was the team expected to finish in the relegation places?
- Is the manager a real life fan of the club?
- Are they active in the game world (newsfeed, transfers, responding to messages, socials, blog)?
We’ll also check the manager’s individual record of achievement in the game world, whether there is interest in their job from other managers, and any other mitigating factors (e.g., personal issues, managers on waiting list, etc.).
Hopefully, this will make a simpler, quicker and fairer decision making process, although at the end of the day it will still come down to the decision of the Admin Team.
Two things I would say about this seasons sackings – we’ve had quite a few managerial changes during the season already, and not many managers waiting or ready to join now from Top 120 or elsewhere, so don’t expect a bloodbath. And as this is a new way of doing it (even if it’s based on the rules that have been there since the beginning), I think it’s only fair to go a little easier on managers this time around. Next season could be different!
For any big new jobs, and/or jobs where there is a lot of interest, I do intend to consult the Managers’ Panel (so sign up, if you haven’t already, if you want to be part of that), but the final decision will still be made by the Admin Team.
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