A Ramble through Europe – Which Managers should we keep an eye on?

by Andrew Crawshaw

I have been looking at the TransferMarket squad values in the European Leagues and how the various teams are performing against their positions (ranked in terms of their squad values).  I last did this a couple of years ago and found that, by and large, there was a reasonably good correlation between the relative squad value within a league and their points based position in that league.

There are, however some teams that seemed to me to be performing significantly better than their value suggested and thinking that maybe this might be down to some kind of managerial prowess these might give us some clues as to whom might be sought by club owners/boards seeking improvements for their teams fortunes.

It is also instructive looking at these tables to see just how uncompetitive some of the leagues are compared with the PL.

Take the Scottish Pl for example :-

Team Squad value £m % of average squad value Position in value table Current league position (24 games) Difference between Squad value table and league position
Celtic FC 46.71 754% 1 1 0
Rangers FC 10.53 170% 2 3 -1
Heart of Midlothian FC 8.54 138% 3 4 -1
Aberdeen FC 7.35 119% 4 2 2
Ross County 6.55 106% 5 7 -2
St Johnstone FC 5.78 93% 6 5 1
Hamilton Academical FC 5.36 86% 7 11 -4
Dundee FC 4.53 73% 8 10 -2
Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC 4.53 73% 9 12 -3
Partick Thistle FC 4.08 66% 10 9 1
Kilmarnock FC 4.04 65% 11 8 3
Motherwell FC 3.57 58% 12 6 6
111.57

Now I have no idea how the Squad values have been derived but, for the purposes of this article, it really isn’t relevant as I am using the same basis throughout.

The total squad value of the Scottish Pl is £112m or just about the two most expensive players at any of the Pl top clubs.  Nearly half of the total value is in Celtic FC and it is therefore absolutely no surprise to see them leading their league – they have 70 points and Aberdeen in second place have 43.  Only one team in the league is doing much better than expected – Motherwell who are 6 places higher than one might expect them to be but this difference can be discounted as none of the teams who they are ‘beating’ has a significantly different value.  Sorry, Mark McGhee, but I don’t see any big clubs picking up the phone to speak to you just yet.

Celtic have nearly 50% of the total league value and their squad is worth 5 times that of the second highest value team so their relative performance should come as no surprise to anyone.

Turning to Germany :-

Team Squad value £m % of average squad value Position in value table Current league position (19 games) Difference between Squad value table and league position
Bayern Munich 472.73 386% 1 1 0
Borussia Dortmund 321.6 263% 2 4 -2
Bayer 04 Leverkusen 231.58 189% 3 9 -6
FC Shalke 04 178.61 146% 4 12 -8
Borussia Monchengladbach 137.32 112% 5 11 -6
VfL Wolfsburg 134.17 110% 6 14 -8
RasenBallsport Leipzig 94.37 77% 7 2 5
TSG 1899 Hoffenheim 85.32 70% 8 5 3
1 FC Koln 79.73 65% 9 7 2
Hertha BSC 71.87 59% 10 6 4
1 FSV Mainz 05 65.64 54% 11 13 -2
Hamburger SV 65.22 53% 12 16 -4
SV Werder Bremen 58.44 48% 13 15 -2
Eintracht Frankfurt 57.50 47% 14 3 11
FC Ausberg 52.93 43% 15 10 5
SC Freiburg 44.43 36% 16 8 8
FC Ingolstadt 30.01 25% 17 17 0
SV Darmstadt 20.61 17% 18 18 0
2202.08

Here, as we would expect Bayern Munich have the highest squad value at £473m, just under a quarter of the league total and, surprise surprise, they are leading their table.

This time however they are not having it quite their own way and there a couple of big surprises in the league positions.  Leipzig are currently second (and only four points behind) with a squad value one fifth of Bayern’s and Eintract Frankfurt are third with a squad value of about one eighth of Bayern’s.  These two teams are vastly out-performing their market ant their managers.  Ralph Hasenhuttl is the Leipzig manager and I can see why he is being touted as a possible replacement for Arsene.  Nico Kovač is the manager of Eintracht and don’t be surprised if his name comes up as well.  At Freiburg Christian Streich is also likely to move on but, I suspect, not to a top top team.

There are 6 teams in Germany who have a squad value greater than average and individual teams have values in a range from 386 to 17% of the average.  Byern’s value is 50% more than the second Club Dortmund.

On to France :-

Team Squad value £m % of average squad value Position in value table Current league position (23 games) Difference between Squad value table and league position
Paris St Germain 387.52 522% 1 2 -1
Olympique Lyon 170.68 230% 2 4 -2
AS Monaco 168.13 226% 3 1 2
OGC Nice 97.05 131% 4 3 1
Olympique Marseille 96.82 130% 5 6 -1
AS Saint-Etienne 66.13 89% 6 5 1
FC Girondins Bordeaux 57.84 78% 7 7 0
FC Toulouse 55.55 75% 8 10 -2
LOSC Lille 46.54 63% 9 12 -3
Stade Rennais FC 44.97 61% 10 9 1
FC Lorient 39.61 53% 11 20 -9
FC Nantes 37.87 51% 12 14 -2
SCO Angers 34.30 46% 13 18 -5
HSC Montpellier 32.56 44% 14 13 1
EA Guingamo 31.24 42% 15 8 7
FC Metz 28.82 39% 16 17 -1
SM Caen 27.67 37% 17 15 2
SC Bastia 25.16 34% 18 19 -1
AS Nancy-Lorraine 18.96 26% 19 11 8
FCO Dijon 18.64 25% 20 16 4
1486.06 0

The 5 teams with the highest value are in the first five places so no real surprises and no real prospects of any further major upsets.  Monaco doing relatively better than the other four and currently leading their league.  Their Manager Leonardo Jardim may well find himself in demand come summer.  Pablo Correra at AS Nancy-Lorraine is another one to watch if their good results continue.

PSG with a squad value more than double anyone else in France would seem to be underperforming at the moment.

South to Spain :-

Team Squad value £m % of average squad value Position in value table Current league position (21 games) Difference between Squad value table and league position
Real Madrid 651.78 423% 1 1 0
FC Barcelona 640.48 416% 2 2 0
Atletico Madrid 422.88 274% 3 4 -1
Sevilla FC 198.39 129% 4 3 1
Valencia CF 157.00 102% 5 15 -10
Villareal CF 147.90 96% 6 6 0
Athletic Bilbao 129.88 84% 7 7 0
Real Sociadad 95.29 62% 8 5 3
Celta de Vigo 87.89 57% 9 10 -1
malaga CF 66.09 43% 10 14 -4
UD Las Palmas 59.93 39% 11 11 0
Real Betis Balompie 56.44 37% 12 13 -1
Deportivo de La Coruna 55.93 36% 13 16 -3
RCD Espanyol Barcelona 54.74 36% 14 8 6
Deportivo Alves 52.79 34% 15 12 3
Granada CF 49.39 32% 16 19 -3
SD Eibar 42.25 27% 17 9 8
Sporting Gijon 41.40 27% 18 18 0
CD Leganes 39.64 26% 19 16 3
CA Osasuna 32.05 21% 20 20 0
3082.14 0

40% of the league value is in Real and Barcelona and a further 15% in Atletico and Sevilla.  This is not the most competitive league in Europe and the top four clubs by value dominate the league.  Valencia are massively under-performing and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they look for a new manager/coach at the end of the season.  The managers at SD Eibar and RCD Espanyol Barcelona seem to be over-performing in this league but are mostly beating clubs with relatively similar values.

and Portugal :-

Team Squad value £m % of average squad value Position in value table Current league position (20 games) Difference between Squad value table and league position
SL Benfica 156.53 401% 1 1 0
FC Porto 145.39 373% 2 2 0
Sporting CP 142.33 365% 3 3 0
SC Braga 37.91 97% 4 4 0
Vitoria Guimarees SC 28.18 72% 5 5 0
Rio Ave FC 23.86 61% 6 9 -3
FC Pacos de Ferreira 17.32 44% 7 14 -7
CD Nacional 17.17 44% 8 18 -10
FC Arouca 16.64 43% 9 10 -1
CF Belenenses 15.77 40% 10 12 -2
GD Estoril Praia 14.9 38% 11 16 -5
Boavista Porto FC 14.64 38% 12 11 1
CS Maritimo 14.54 37% 13 6 7
Vitoria Setubal FC 14.13 36% 14 8 6
CD Feirense 11.96 31% 15 13 2
GD Chaves 11.62 30% 16 7 9
Moreirense FC 10.90 28% 17 15 2
CD Tondela 8.48 22% 18 17 1
702.27

Here 70% of the value is with the top three clubs and no-one else really stands much of a chance.  Benfica and Porto are 10 and 9 points clear of Sporting with Braga in fourth place.

Finally back to the UK and England

Team Squad value £m % of average squad value Position in value table Current league position (24 games) Difference between Squad value table and league position
Man City 459.21 223% 1 3 -2
Man United 422.45 206% 2 6 -4
Arsenal 415.65 202% 3 4 -1
Chelsea 406.98 198% 4 1 3
Spurs 314.5 153% 5 2 3
Liverpool 310.0 151% 6 5 1
Everton 206.64 101% 7 7 0
Southampton 182.75 89% 8 13 -5
Leicester 180.46 88% 9 16 -7
West Ham 177.14 86% 10 9 1
Crystal Palace 162.14 79% 11 19 -8
Stoke 148.54 72% 12 11 1
Watford 111.35 54% 13 10 3
Swansea 105.27 51% 14 17 -3
Hull 102.3 50% 15 18 -3
AFC Bournemouth 93.97 46% 16 14 2
Sunderland AFC 84.36 41% 17 20 -3
Middlesbrough 81.39 40% 18 15 3
West Brom 81.26 40% 19 8 11
Burnley 64.6 31% 20 12 8
4110.96 0

The most valuable league in terms of Player values and with a range of 220 to 40% of the average squad value the one with the least variance top to bottom.  Indeed Burnley with a squad value of 64.6m have the 79th highest squad value in the world just behind Shanghai who include both Oscar and Hulk on their roster.

The top 7 clubs by value occupy the top 7 league places.  Chelsea and Spurs are both doing better than plain values would suggest but the squad values are all fairly similar so it is difficult to read too much into these variations – it is quite likely that other factors may be prevalent.

West Brom are the one team who are doing massively better than their squad value would indicate and it is likely that Tony Pulis is currently the best manager in the Premier League.  To quote from Top Gear – “on that bombshell goodnight”.

27 Replies to “A Ramble through Europe – Which Managers should we keep an eye on?”

  1. LOL Wenger out! Pulis in!
    Oh my god did I really write this… even just as a joke…

  2. Excellent way of looking at things Andrew.
    What we do need after Wenger is indeed a manager who can improve a team compared to the richer teams. Mourinho and Pep can’t do this. They need the most money and the most expensive teams to get results. And even then it doesn’t always work out for them.

    The Leipzig manager is maybe a good thing to look at. Yes Leipzig has bought a lot of players but not really big names or expensive players. Their manager is building a team. And that is the only way Arsenal can compete with the big spenders like MU, MC and Chelsea.

  3. Walter..

    The progress of Leipzig will be measured next season. Are they equivalent of Abramovich’s Chelsea – or are they Leicester in disguise?

  4. As far as I’m concerned, I’d be seriously looking at Lucien Favre at OGC Nice in France.
    He did some great things with Herta Berlin and Borussia Mönchengladbach in the past.
    He is good at bringing up young players, spotting talents and teams play flowing attacking football.
    And het gets the most out of his teams.

  5. I don’t think there is a need at this time to start rambling through the landscape of Europe searching for who will be the next Arsenal manager. For, from all indications, Monsieur Wenger has no intention of quitting from his managerial job at Arsenal now. More so if he won one of the titles of the PL and CL this season with the former being the most preferred by the Gooners.

    Arsenal are third and ahead of Chelsea in the PL squad value table. I don’t think it’s only the squad value in a club that will make the club to win the PL title. Other factors such as the quality of players in the squad and more importantly the consistent top form of the team in the squad are significant contributions that can make a club to win the title or titles.

    What was the squad value of Leicester City and their position in the squad value table when they won the PL title last season? Just over £180m and 9th in table and 7 places below Arsenal and not up to half of Arsenal’s players squad value. What has this told us? I think it has told us that it’s the most consistent team in top form in a League which may not necessarily have a big squad value could win the PL title. Leicester City’s top form was higher and remained consistently higher than the form of the rest of the top teams in the PL’s top six clubs throughout last season’s PL campaign which saw them won the title.

    After I’ve read Cesc Fabregas comment in the media yesterday in which he has allured to the believes that the physically, fitter, stronger, powerfull and faster player has taken preference and precedence over the talented smaller framed body player in today’s modern football. Then I began to wonder and ask myself if there have been the lacking of some of these quality ingredients in the Arsenal’s first team squads that have followed the invincibles team era which have hindered our subsequent teams to credibly pushed for title winnings in last twelve seasons?

    I think Le Prof may need re access his signings in the next windows to see that any of the above quality ingredients that is not present in his team is sufficiently addressed. So that the next Arsenal team will be an all-round team in terms of all the required top quality ingredients that should be in the top team squad of Arsenal team caliber.

  6. Excellent piece, Andrew.

    Last year I wrote a three-part article about possible candidates for our next manager. 13 different candidates were considered including three former Arsenal players.

    Thierry Henry is the Belgium assistant manager.

    Dennis Bergkamp is still at Ajax as the assistant manager to Peter Bosz.

    Patrick Vieira is the New York FC manager.

    Roberto Martinez is the Belgium manager.

    Ronald Koeman is at Everton.

    Jose Mourinho is at Manchester United.

    Roberto Mancini is currently unemployed after leaving Inter Milan in August 2016.

    Laurent Blanc is currently unemployed after leaving PSG after the end of the last season.

    Thomas Tuchel is still at Borussia Dortmund.

    Diego Simeone is still at Atletico Madrid, with his contract length being reduced from 2020 to 2018.

    Joachim Löw is still at Germany, with his contract being prolonged until 2020.

    Frank de Boer had a horrible stint at Inter Milan where he was fired after just FOURTEEN games in charge.

    Dragan Stojkovic is currently at Guangzhou R & F in China (don’t confuse it with Guangzhou Evergrande) and his contract allegedly expires in 2017 (except Transfermarkt suggests it expires in 2020).

    Of all new names that have been mentioned ever since (Howe, Allegri, Hassenhüttl, Jardim), I am terrified of thought we’d get the first one. Howe would become our Moyes. Allegri has done excellent job with AC Milan and Juventus but he is also the only manager in this decade that failed to win the league with Zlatan Ibrahimović in the team (Jose Mourinho will become the second one in a few months and – just like it happened to Allegri in 2011-12 – it seems Antonio Conte will lift the trophy come May). Hassenhüttl and Jardim have both assembled a lot of young yet expensive talents and now reap the rewards for their work. Jardim has an asterisk at his name though as there were sparks between him and Mr Wenger after our defeat to Monaco in 2014-15. Back then, Jardim played a rather defensive football but now his Monaco play the most exciting football in Europe averaging almost three goals per game (70 goals in 24 games) and they have beaten Spuds twice this season so it’s a huge plus for Jardim.

  7. Maybe what we need when Arsene Wenger has retired or leaves is someone similar to Arsene Wenger but more ruthless when it comes to mediocre players.
    Players like Almunia and Nikolas Bendtner should never had repeated contract renewals at a top club like Arsenal.
    We also need a manager we accepts paying top dollar for top players when the club has £200m plus sitting in the bank.

    I think a manager with Wenger’s playing philosophy but who is prepared to spend big on players like Suarez is what we need.

    Welbeck is a Man Utd reject. He was sold by Man Utd because he isn’t clinical in front of goal. United wanted a clinical striker.

    If he isn’t clinical enough for United, he most likely isn’t clinical enough for us. Man Utd would never sell a top quality striker to Arsenal.

    Arsene Wenger is a brilliant manager but he has his weaknesses.
    Maybe one of the reasons he doesn’t correct his weaknesses is that the CEO and the board are very satisfied when Wenger buys average players like Elneny for £5m instead of the true market value of £15m or so. The Arsenal board are very happy that Arsene Wenger always generates healthy profits for the club.

    Every club owner would love to have Arsene Wenger as the boss. He generates profits. He makes his team stay within the Top 4. He plays beautiful football. He always tries to buy players on the cheap.

  8. Wenger himself says finishing Top 4 isn’t the target. He wants to win the league.

    More and more fans are also saying Top 4 is not enough. Arsenal as a World Top 7 club in terms wealth and riches should be winning league titles or getting into Champions League finals.

    The only reason why Arsenal is not achieving these higher targets is NOT because we have an interior manager. I think it is because we have interior players but a healthy bank balance with over £200m. If we had players like Sol Campbell, like Pires, like Dennis Berkhamp, like Thierry, like Patrick Viera we would be winning league titles and not always getting knocked out in the Last 16 in the Champions League.

    We are now aiming for success on the cheap. And often we fail.

  9. Zurivi
    If Chelsea and Man City hadn’t suddenly become mega wealthy overnight and if we hadn’t invested £400 million into a stadium I am sure we would have lifted a few more league titles over the last few years.

  10. @Zuruvi

    “If we had players like Sol Campbell, like Pires, like Dennis Berkhamp, like Thierry, like Patrick Viera we would be winning league titles and not always getting knocked out in the Last 16 in the Champions League.”

    Campbell, Pires, Bergkamp, Henry and Vieira had played together for 4 years.

    In 2001-02 we won the league but we were knocked out in the Second Champions League Group Stage – equivalent of today’s Round of 16. In fact, we had a negative European record (5 victories, a draw, six defeats). Thierry missed two penalties in a row in our home defeat to Deportivo and in our away defeat to Juventus.

    In 2002-03 we were runners-up after spilling a huge lead ahead of Man United. Sol elbowed Solskjaer in the derby against Man United at Highbury and left us with a make-shift defence for the run-in. In Champions League, we failed to progress from The Second Group Stage again because we couldn’t beat Roma at Highbury despite being a goal up and having an extra man on the pitch for almost 70 minutes after Totti’s red card. The Guardian reporter described that Arsenal team with these words: “… but this group has developed an eccentric penchant for complicating their games, no matter what advantages they might hold.”

    In 2003-04 we won the league without a single defeat but we lost three European matches (one of those was the joint worst home defeat in European competitions of ALL TIMES) and were knocked out in CL quarterfinals against Chelsea when all big European clubs were out of the picture and our path to the European glory was cleared.

    In 2004-05 we were runners up and in Champions League we were knocked out of Champions League Round of 16 by…wait for it…Bayern Munich. We were thrashed in Munich with Kolo Toure scoring a consolation goal at 3:0 and Thierry scored the only goal of the game in the return leg but we were always the second best in that tie.

    My point is, we had all players you mentioned in the quoted post and still failed to reach the last eight in three out of four occasions. The only time we did, The Invincibles beat Celta Vigo who eventually got relegated from Primera. There are no guarantees Vieira, Bergkamp, Henry and Pires would immediately turn us into the best European club.

  11. Josif, I share your fears on Howe…the only thing he would bring us would be better treatment from refs.
    i would take wenger for two more years with a proper succession plan over any of the options

  12. @Josif.
    My view is that we need better players as we have a brilliant manager.
    Maybe you are saying it is not the players but the manager who is to blame for this inadequate achievement.

    I remember when we had these great players we were Invincibles, we competed for league titles, we won big games, etc.

    I think a brilliant manager can take average players only so far but no further (in most cases). In our case the “so far” is probably Top 4.

  13. There’s obviously something wrong. We need to improve our situation.
    I accept that the referees are a big handicap for us but I also think we have serious weaknesses in our team. It is too frequent after a defeat that we hear Arsene Wenger say “We were not ready for the fight. We were not ready for the duals. That’s why we lost.”
    Or Wenger will say “we created as many chances as them” but we lost the game 3-1. That means we are not clinical upfront or we are careless in defense or both.

  14. Amazing. Have any of you ever considered the fact that it is the supporters that need to change? We all ‘know’ everything about football yet very few if any write to the club with our suggestions & views.
    I have written to the club & unfortunately got a very nice but negative response. I wanted the junior players to be coached in kicking technique. How to kick a dead ball with accuracy. How to make a ball ‘dip’. How to ‘bend’ a ball. How to pass a ball & slow it down once it his the ground. Techniques that are all simple to teach & to practice. Yet very few players can do half of these let alone kick a dead ball with accuracy.

    Our team is not the best but it certainly isn’t the worst. Our manager is amongst the best. The only weakness is our home support has not yet learned how to sing in unison & support the whole organisation – like the Icelandic fans did. What would that do to our players morale?

  15. Most of the players who became part of the invincibles were either rejects , not performing well at their previous clubs or were almost unknowns .

    – Henry was having a poor time in Italy at Juventus.

    – Bergkamp was being ridiculed at Inter -from Wikipedia – ‘Because of his poor performance on the pitch, one Italian publication renamed their award given to the worst performance of the week, L’asino della settimana (Donkey of the Week) to Bergkamp della settimana.[17][

    – Kanu also was not faring much better at Inter following his heart surgery .

    -Vieira – Was a reserve , but being considered as future bright prospect at Millan when we signed him.

    Many of the others also joined as new commers and many were unknown to most. To me at least ! It took time , coaching and patience for them to gel and become the legends they are now .Their greatness was cemented at Arsenal , and not at the other clubs .

  16. Menace..Nice one .Its not the managers fault.Its not the players fault.Its all the fans fault.And not forgetting the cheating northern white referees.You really are funnier than brickfields jokes.Pure comedy genius!!

  17. Did someone say comedy ? OK !

    All his life Kumar was a gangster. His life was an endless cycle of violence and thuggery, until one day he had a vision of the Lord in his dream.

    Taking it as an omen, Kumar had 108 hooks pierced onto his body and he prayed to the Everpresent.

    Lo and behold, the Lord appeared before him and with a booming voice the Lord asked , “What you really want in your life my son?”

    With a tremble in his voice and tears in his eyes Kumar answered “My life has been a history of violence. I have taken things I don’t own from people that don’t have. I wish that I never beat anyone anymore and I can give back to those who are less fortunate.”

    And the Lord answered “So let it be!” and waved his spear”.

    Poof…With a loud bang and a puff of smoke, Kumar turned into Liverpool FC.

    Now they don’t beat anyone and give aways points to all the small teams.

  18. @Brickfields.
    It appears that since we were “lucky” in converting rejects and reserve players from other teams into Invincibles we now think that’s the only strategy.

    My view is that we have a brilliant manager but average players.

    Maybe because we coached a gifted Thierry Henry into a world-class player we now think we are able to coach Nikolas Bendtner and Yaya Sanogo into superstars if we hold onto these players for 6, 7 or 8 years.

    I still believe that the Invincibles were naturally talented players whom we bought and further developed.

    Wenger is brilliant.
    The players are average.
    The consequences are that we “overachieve” by finishing in Top 4 but we don’t win the top, top prizes.
    The quality of the cake is dependent on how good the baker is and also how good the ingredients are. Poor ingredients could undermine the good work of the master-baker.

  19. @Brickfields.
    Kanu was a genius who had had a heart operation. Everyone knew that if he recovered from the operation he was a brilliant player.

    Bergkamp was a genius player before he came to Arsenal. He might have have a bad game or bad month at Inter but when we signed him I knew we had signed a brilliant player.

    Thierry Henry was a top, top young player when we signed him. He was a French international who had already been signed by the great Juventus team when Italian football was still great. Thierry was about 20 years old when he joined Juventus. He had to be a bit-part player because Juventus was a super club with mature players of top quality.

    Patrick Viera was a brilliant young player who was breaking into the great Milan team. He was internationally recognised as a star-in-the-making to those who followed French football.

    Typical of the British media at the time, they didn’t know of talented young French, Italian or Dutch players. So whenever Wenger bought a young superstar, everyone in England thought Wenger had picked someone from the moon. Guess what, the Italian clubs had already seen that French football has some interesting talents.

    So in conclusion, Arsenal has a brilliant manager but we are let down by having average players yet people here celebrate whenever we don’t buy players in transfer windows. We should use that £200 million to buy better players.

  20. @ Zuruvi – 10/02/2017 at 10:49 am – It wasn’t luck . The Prof built the sides slowly and patiently , which all came together to peak and attain success . As a team they were united , committed and worked well.
    Then only Man Utd were probably our only regular ans serious challengers. We all know that that has changed drastically .For whatever reasons it has still clicked of late , but I like to think that our players are quite good and ambitious enough.
    I like to think that AW still has it in him to guide this team , albeit with some further tweaking , to win things.
    Up the Gunners !

  21. @Zuruvi

    Yes, Henry was excellent player even before joining Arsenal. I recall his exciting partnership with David Trezeguet at Monaco and Ronaldo’s words of praise at World Cup 1998.

    However, he wasn’t a bit part player at Juventus because of their superbness but because they were shite during those six months. They qualified for Intertoto Cup, suffered defeats everywhere including the one against Man United in CL semifinals. Ancelotti did a poor job with Thierry and instead of using him as a striker in the absence of Del Piero (he had a terrible ACL injury), he put him on the wing.

    True, Thierry did decide the title race by scoring two goals against Lazio in 3:1 Juventus victory. Milan won the league by a single point.

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