The main talking point in the Premier league this week has been the appointment of Antonio Conte at Tottenham, as he comes in to replace the departed Nuno Espirito Santo.
It's been quite a downfall for Santo, just 52 days before he was sacked, he was awarded the Manager of the Month award for August as Spurs started the season with three consecutive 1-0 wins.
With Spurs fans upset by the negative style of play Santo's side were showing, there was already some discontent amongst the fan base, and as results dropped off, this only got stronger.
Conte comes in as a winner, He's led his teams to 4 Serie A titles, A Premier League title. and an F.A Cup amongst other honours, and naturally, FPL players are wondering if he can rejuvenate Spurs into a team with assets we will wan to buy.
In order to decipher this, I've looked at the most recent Managerial (mid-season) appointments and had a look at how they have transformed their teams form immediately after their appointments.
The new manager bounce is an often-used phrase, so i wanted to dig deeper and see if it's real, and if so, what lies behind it?
I've looked back over seasons 2017/18 onwards, and taken managers that are current custodians, and therefore the managers included in this are:
Ralph Hassenhutl,
Ole Gunnar Solksjaer (ironically Conte had been heavily linked with replacing him) ,
Brendan Rodgers
Mikel Arteta
David Moyes
Thomas Tuchel.
Claudio Ranieri hasn't taken charge of enough games at Watford to be included, otherwise I'd have included him too.
Looking at the 5 PL games before and after their appointment to give an immediate breakdown
Based solely on points, only Hassenhutl didn't see an upturn, as he matched the three points Southampton had gained in the 5 games prior to his introduction. The 6 managers averaged an increase of 4.25 points over their first 5 games, suggesting that the New manager bounce is indeed a common phenomenon.
Even if Conte hits the average increase, and we round it down to 4 points, that would give Spurs 10 points over their next 5 Fixtures, which will put their assets firmly on our radar.
Whilst the initial talk has mainly surrounded Son and Kane, it should be noted that all of the managers saw an increase in their defensive efforts, averaging 4.67 fewers goals conceded over the 5 games (0.93 per game).
This shouldn't altogether be that surprising, a new manager usually comes in due to a team struggling, so the first thing they do is make them selves harder to beat, by shoring up at the back.
So are we all barking up the wrong tree, expecting Kane and Son to immediately revert to past glories? Not exactly, as attacking output is usually increased too, with only Arteta's Arsenal failing to score more goals under the new manager.
The average increase over the first 5 games is 2.83 goals, which works out at 0.57 per game, so there are hopes (especially as a Kane owner), when couple with Conte's pressing style, and his want for shots in side the box.
The big question now though, is if we see such an improvement under Conte, who are going to be the players to excel and target?
With Conte favouring a 3-5-2 (or variations of it) in the past, then Sergio Reguilon could be one to prosper. The trends suggest a defensive improvement, which suggests clean sheet returns could be on the cards, and with an added attacking responsibility, you would expect his chance creation (currently 1 per game) to increase, with a potential return to the sort of form that led him to be one of the hottest prospects in the world as he helped Sevilla to Europa League glory in 2020.
Conte has also shown he isn't afraid to bring in players that were previously cast aside, which could hold hope for previous FPL royalty such as Matt Doherty (especially if he could line up at RWB) and Dele Alli (especially as Conte usually likes to have 2 of his 3 midfielders running past his forwards), however these would be massive gambles to bring in at the minute, until we see them involved more often.
With a Front two seemingly being preferred by Conte, then tit is understandable that people are excited by the prospect of Heung Min Son potentially playing out of position, and lining up next to Harry Kane up front. We know these two can link up to devastating effect.