The Least Successful Premier League Managers ...Middle East

Stat, Viz, Quiz is the Opta Analyst football newsletter. This week’s edition looks at Ivan Juric, Feyenoord, and long-range goalscorers.

Southampton’s return to the Premier League after winning last season’s Championship play-off final will have been a great day for Saints fans.

However, the celebrations didn’t last long, with it being apparent for much of the 2024-25 campaign that their comeback to the top flight would be brief. That was confirmed on Sunday when they became the first team in Premier League history to be relegated with as many as seven games remaining.

It saw Ivan Juric relieved of his duties as manager on Monday, and we’ll look not only at the Croatian’s short time at the club, but how he compared to other managers who also didn’t experience that winning feeling very often.

One team who did experience that feeling this weekend was Feyenoord, who did something not seen since at least the 2010-11 season in the Eredivisie, which we’ll also tell you all about.

We looked at long-range shooting in the Premier League in last week’s SVQ, and we hope you’re not bored of that just yet as we’ll be revisiting it in this week’s Ask Opta question, while we look to the Champions League quarter-finals for quiz inspiration.

Let’s kick things off by heading down to Southampton.

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STAT – Horrible Bosses

In fairness, it did feel like a somewhat impossible job for Ivan Juric. The former Roma boss was hired to replace Russell Martin at Southampton on 21 December with Saints bottom of the Premier League on just five points from 16 games, and nine points from safety.

However, following their 3-1 loss at Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday, Southampton’s relegation back to the Championship was confirmed, and in record time.

While it wasn’t the earliest relegation from the Premier League in terms of date, it was when considering remaining games played, with the south-coast club the first in the competition’s history to be confirmed as down with as many as seven matches still to play.

After 31 games, Southampton are 22 points behind 17th-placed Wolves, meaning they can already start to prepare for life back in the second tier. They made a start on that by agreeing with Juric to end his brief spell in Hampshire on Monday.

While Juric was dealt a bad hand, there was little to no ‘new manager bounce’ after his arrival, with Southampton losing a chastening 12 of his 14 Premier League games in charge, winning one and drawing one. Their solitary victory in that time at Ipswich Town was a brief boost, but it should also be noted it was against another team in the bottom three who look very likely to be going down with them.

We’ve crunched the numbers and we’re afraid to say that when looking at Premier League managers who have been in charge for at least 10 games, Juric leaves St Mary’s with the worst points-per-game average in the competition’s history (0.29).

It is marginally fewer than his predecessor Martin (0.31 from 16 games), who is level with former Wolves boss Terry Connor (0.31 from 13 games).

Former Huddersfield head coach Jan Siewert is next (0.33 from 15 games), followed by Kevin Ball at Sunderland and ex Fulham boss Slavisa Jokanovic (both 0.42 from 12 games), former Derby manager Billy Davies (0.43 from 14 games) and Roy McFarland at Bolton Wanderers (0.45 from 22 games).

Leeds United are still in the promotion race in the Championship, but we should mention that their current boss, Daniel Farke, has a points-per-game average of just 0.53 in the Premier League, having won six, drawn eight and lost 35 of his previous 49 top-flight games when in charge of Norwich City, the ninth worst record in the competition’s history.

For more on this, visit the Opta Analyst site where Matt Furniss has looked into it in more detail.

VIZ – How to Win Without Hitting the Target

If you don’t hit the target, you don’t score; if you don’t score, you don’t win. We all know how football works.

Well, Feyenoord said “Hold my Jenever” as they sealed a 1-0 win at AZ Alkmaar on Saturday despite the notable handicap of not having a single shot on target in the game.

This of course was due to their goal being accidentally scored by opposition player Zico Buurmeester. It meant they became the first team on record (since 2010-11) to have won a game in the Eredivisie despite having zero shots on target.

They are also the only team in Europe’s top 10 leagues this season to do so, but there have been other examples in recent years.

When looking at Europe’s top five leagues, the last time it occurred was in December 2021 when Spezia beat Napoli 1-0 in Naples with none of their shots hitting the target, benefitting from a Juan Jesus own goal.

Only three weeks earlier, Rayo Vallecano won 1-0 at home to Espanyol via a Leandro Cabrera OG without once testing the goalkeeper, while almost exactly a year prior, Sevilla did the same to Getafe after Xabier Etxeita put through his own net.

There have only been two examples of it happening in the Premier League since 2010-11, and both involved Watford in the 2016-17 season.

Firstly, the Hornets beat Hull City 1-0 in October 2016 without any of their 23 attempts hitting the target, having to rely on a Michael Dawson own goal.

Just five months later, they were defeated by the same score at Crystal Palace despite the hosts not forcing one save from Watford goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes after Troy Deeney accidentally headed Yohan Cabaye’s free-kick into his own goal.

If you don’t shoot, you probably won’t score, but you might, and you could still end up with three points. It’s probably not a phrase that will join the football lexicon any time soon, but is technically accurate, as we’ve just proven.

QUIZ – Quiz-ter Finals

With the Champions League quarter-finals getting under way this week, we’re heading across Europe for our latest quiz. Answers at the bottom of the page.

1. Arsenal and Real Madrid will face off in the Champions League for the first time since the 2005-06 last 16. Who went through on that occasion?

2. Bayern Munich are unbeaten in their last 22 home matches in the Champions League (W17 D5). Who was the last visiting team to beat them in the competition? Clue: They are one of the teams still remaining in this season’s quarter-finals.

3. Bayern’s opponents on Tuesday, Inter, have the best defensive record of any remaining team in the competition. How many goals have the Nerazzurri conceded in their 10 Champions League games this season?

4. Aston Villa boss Unai Emery and PSG head coach Luis Enrique have not faced each other since the 2016-17 campaign when Emery was at PSG and Luis Enrique was at Barcelona. What was the outcome of their Champions League last-16 encounter?

5. Raphinha has been directly involved in 16 goals in 10 appearances in the Champions League this season (11 goals, five assists). Who is the only Barcelona player to have recorded more in a single campaign in the competition?

Ask Opta

This week’s question comes from Paul Heighton, who asks: “Can you tell me the top six scorers of Premier League goals scored from outside the 18-yard box?” 

Do you have a stats-based football question you want to Ask Opta? If so, send it to [email protected] and we’ll do our best to provide you with the answer in a future edition of SVQ.

Answer:

We certainly can, Paul.

In fact, we can do better than that. We’ll reveal the top 10.

Frank Lampard was well known for slamming shots from outside the opposition box and into the back of their net, which he did 41 times in the Premier League, at least seven more than anyone else in the competition’s history.

David Beckham takes second spot (34), ahead of Steven Gerrard and Alan Shearer (both 33).

Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink (32) is fifth, with joint-sixth going to the talented trio of Thierry Henry, Wayne Rooney and Kevin De Bruyne (29 each).

Matt Le Tissier is ninth (28) with Harry Kane rounding out the top 10 (25).

Should people wish to know more on the topic, we recently wrote all about the reduction in long-range shooting in the Premier League through the years.

Our Opta data hubs have detailed team and player stats, predictions, expected league tables and much more. Click below to start your own data investigations.

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Quiz Answers

1. Arsenal and Real Madrid will face off in the Champions League for the first time since the 2005-06 last 16. Who went through on that occasion?

Arsenal won 1-0 on aggregate after victory in Madrid was followed by a 0-0 draw at Highbury

2. Bayern Munich are unbeaten in their last 22 home matches in the Champions League (W17 D5). Who was the last visiting team to beat them in the competition? Clue: They are one of the teams still remaining in this season’s quarter-finals.

Paris Saint-Germain in April 2021 (3-2 in the quarter-final first leg)

3. Bayern’s opponents on Tuesday, Inter, have the best defensive record of any remaining team in the competition. How many goals have the Nerazzurri conceded in their 10 Champions League games this season?

Two

4. Aston Villa boss Unai Emery has won just two of his 10 games against PSG head coach Luis Enrique as a manager (D1 L7), with both wins coming in home fixtures. Indeed, this will be the first time they’ve faced each other since the 2016-17 campaign when Emery was at PSG and Luis Enrique was at Barcelona. What was the outcome of their Champions League last-16 encounter?

Barcelona won 6-5 on aggregate after coming from 4-0 down in the first leg to win 6-1 in the second

5. Raphinha has been directly involved in 16 goals in 10 appearances in the Champions League this season (11 goals, five assists). Who is the only Barcelona player to have recorded more in a single campaign in the competition?

Lionel Messi in 2011-12 (19 – 14 goals, 5 assists)

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