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Pay As You Play: The True Price of Success in the Premier League Era
 
 

Pay As You Play: The True Price of Success in the Premier League Era [Kindle Edition]

Gary Fulcher , Graeme Riley , Paul Tomkins
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)

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Review

"An ingenious and intelligent look beneath the surface to reveal what the headlines too often don't tell us. Fascinating." Jonathan Wilson, author of 'Inverting the Pyramid: A History of Football Tactics' "For years we've judged football and football people without the analytical tools to do it properly. Finally a book that attempts to do so intelligently. Hopefully a harbinger of more to come!" Gabriele Marcotti, author, journalist, broadcaster"

Product Description

As billionaire 'super-benefactors' fight for the right to own English football clubs, "Pay As You Play" takes a detailed look at the correlation between success and transfer spending. Tactics, motivation, fitness and luck play a part; but is an expensive squad increasingly essential for success? Which managers have excelled in the transfer market? And who blew their budgets on bad buys? Which clubs punched above their financial weight, and which ones punched well below theirs? What players proved to be great value for their price tag, and who ended up as a shocking waste of money? By converting all Premier League transfer fees since 1992 to current-day prices - using our specially devised Transfer Price Index (TPI) system to give precise 'football inflation' figures - teams could be accurately assessed against one another, whether from 1993 or 2010. How would the prices paid for Dean Saunders, Roy Keane or Frank Lampard compare with Thierry Henry, Wayne Rooney or Robinho? All 43 clubs to have played in the Premier League up to May 2010 are analysed, with noted writers and journalists - including Jonathan Wilson, Gabriele Marcotti and Oliver Kay - also providing their views on the club they support or report on. All in all, it makes for an entertaining and revealing read on the world's most popular game, and its most appealing league.


Reviews
"An ingenious and intelligent look beneath the surface to reveal what the headlines too often don't tell us. Fascinating." Jonathan Wilson, author of 'Inverting the Pyramid: A History of Football Tactics'

"For years we've judged football and football people without the analytical tools to do it properly. Finally a book that attempts to do so intelligently. Hopefully a harbinger of more to come!" Gabriele Marcotti, author, journalist, broadcaster"

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Paul Tomkins
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Customer Reviews

14 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (14 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Dissects the modern English game perfectly, 8 Nov 2010
An outstanding piece of analysis which confirms what we've always suspected that, other things being equal, the more a team spends on players the greater it's chance of achieving success. The authors have used a methodology called Transfer Price Index (akin to the retail price index but using a "basket" of each player bought and sold each season since 1992) as the cornerstone of their analysis.

The book takes the last two decades of transfer data in the premiership and piece by piece, argument by argument, tries to answer two fundamental questions:
(a) has the way been structured in the last 20 years both in the English league and Europe caused too much disparity?; and
(b) is there now a lack of competitive balance in the Premier League and is the problem growing worse?

Along the way it shows the under and over achieving managers; the Newcastle effect (i bet you can guess what thats about) and makes other fascinating pitstops.

Whilst it will fascinate the inner Statos in all of us Paul Tomkins and his co-authors have done a remarkable job in explaining potentially difficult concepts in a straightforward and entertaining way. Anyone who has read previous Tomkins' books will recognise his witty, relaxed writing style which makes what could have been a very dry book un-put-downable.

It should be required reading for the powers that be at the FA. Perhaps it may help to introduce a system which returns some sense of equality and fair play amongst the 20 clubs competing in the premier league. Journalists and the lazy TV pundits could do as well to read through this outstanding, dare I say, seminal piece of work
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Football's New Age of Enlightenment, 8 Nov 2010
With the release of Inverting the Pyramid, Soccernomics: Why England Lose and now Pay as You Play, football has started to find a new reasoned and inquisitive voice. One that has been missing for far too long in an age of rushed, ill-conceived journalism and football pundits that appear to have come fresh from a lobotomy to the studio.

To quote Immanuel Kant in relation to a book that is essentially about football seems a little much, but authors Paul Tomkins, Graham Riley and Gary Fulcher pursue an approach the German would have recognised immediately. One that is grounded in empiricism, scientific rigour and a questioning of orthodoxy. Kant described this as simply the freedom to use one's own intelligence, coined in a phrase he used, "Sapere aude" (Dare to know). Anyone who has had the pleasure of baring witness to the analysis and discussion that takes place on the BBC and Sky weakly, or in the papers daily, will know that this approach is one that has been almost completely abandoned in the discourse surrounding football currently.

Pay as You Play uses the sharp impartial tools of economics and a large body of detailed research to shine a light on the last twenty years of the Premier League. Charting the effects of an unprecedented rise in investment that have come to define the upper echelons of the modern game. Perhaps its greatest achievement though, is to do so in a way that has the reader turning the page in curiosity, caught up in a well written combination of inquisition and passion for the sport that has become truly the world's game. Football deserves an approach that rewards the passion and love millions of people hold in it, an approach that questions those so desperate to peddle received wisdom and "common sense", it deserves an enlightened discourse and Tomkins, Riley and Fulcher deliver that in spades.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Facts & Figures - Who Would Have Thought It Was Possible!, 1 Nov 2010
By 
fairdes "fairdes" (Brisbane, Australia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Pay As You Play: The True Price of Success in the Premier League Era (Kindle Edition)
As a rule, I'm not a huge fan of facts and figures. Anything with lots of numbers and statistics generally bore me to tears. However, this book manages to be that rare beast; one that provides hard facts and figures, but also manages to be both interesting and entertaining at the same time.

If you've ever tried to debate that the 'bigger' clubs are more predetermined to succeed because of the vast amount of money spent on their players, this book provides conclusive evidence to support your argument. It also shows which managers have underachieved and overachieved given the money at their disposal. But the most incredible part of this book is how they have managed to convert the money spent on players from the past into current monetary figures. Some people have far too much time on their hands!

If you have ever read the book Soccernomics by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski (also available from Amazon and highly recommended), you will love this. And that is the best compliment I can pay it.
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Popular Highlights

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&quote;
The cheapest cost per point in a single season  and the second-cheapest  belongs to Sam Allardyces Bolton. &quote;
Highlighted by 9 Kindle users
&quote;
(If theres one moral of this book for highly regarded managers, it is this: do not, under any circumstances, manage Newcastle United. Run away, run far, far away.) &quote;
Highlighted by 9 Kindle users
&quote;
While this is a small sample size, it seems to support the accepted wisdom that to win a title for the first time is the hardest; not least, in psychological terms, when the pressure really starts to mount. It seems that to overcome this hurdle an even more expensive team is required; more or less the most expensive in the land. &quote;
Highlighted by 8 Kindle users

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