Amorim’s first game for Man Utd: Does the ‘new manager bounce’ actually exist?

The new boss of Manchester's red side will hope a new football tradition smiles upon his team to lift the club out of a record slump.

Since the departure of Sir Alex Ferguson in 2013, there has been a real managerial merry-go-round at Old Trafford. The last player to win the hot seta, Portuguese coach Ruben Amorim, faces his first challenge against lowly Ipswich Town on November 24.

Whenever a new manager is appointed in the Premier League, there is talk in the media about the so-called 'new manager bounce'.

The story behind this phenomenon is that the appointment of a new boss, regardless of who they are and their acumen, automatically improves the team's results. Particularly important for teams teetering on the brink of relegation, United's 12th-place finish in the league means such a boost would be hugely appreciated by fans.

Although the bounce is often discussed and even used in official league promotions, but does it actually exist?

The stats behind the new manager are bouncing

To determine whether or not the appointment of a new manager causes a bounce, we need to set the parameters of what a bounce is. For this short study, we use the five results before and after a permanent managerial appointment since the start of the 2022/2023 season. Only mid-season changes count, because it would take an uptick to move from May to August, and a manger would have to be fired. All statistics come from Transfermarkt.

In that time there have been 15 permanent management appointments, with only three interim changes since the 2023/24 season began. Of these 14, Potter was not fired by Brighton, in more than two-thirds of the cases there was a point improvement after a new coach; each team was on average 3.5 points better off.

The pace of managerial sackings increased towards the end of the season, with teams at the bottom of the table hoping to capitalize on these points increases. Of the three relegated teams in the 2022/2023 season, only Leicester saw a small increase in points (five to one) but was still relegated. Their manager Dean Smith was given just eight games to turn around fortunes, while relegated Leeds also gave Sam Allardyce just four games, taking one point.

There are limits to the importance of a bounce. The fact that there was no initial bounce does not mean that a management change was a failure. An early enough change doesn't mean the new boss has time to implement his ideas. Eleven of the fourteen changes also had a better points-per-game ratio than their predecessors, showing that often a change of manager will improve the team in the long term as well as provide an initial boost.

For example, Crystal Palace exchanged Roy Hodgson for Oliver Glasner in January. Despite an initial poor run of just five points in five games, two fewer than in Hodgson's last five games, Glasner's Palace remained unbeaten in the last seven games of the season, winning six.

Erik ten Hag, the former head coach of Manchester United, finished his spell with a ratio of 1.22 points per game, with just five points coming from their last five games. Amorim hopes to see this famous jump in action and treat United fans to a gift before Christmas.