New manager bounce? It's all down to Lady Luck

Paul Clement became the sixth Premier League manager sacked this season when bottom club Swansea City ended his one-year tenure on Wednesday but any upswing in results the Swans enjoy will be largely down to luck, according to a leading analyst.

The so-called "new manager bounce" often accompanies a club parting ways with a manager and hiring a new one as demonstrated this month with West Ham United's resurgence under David Moyes after he replaced Slaven Bilic.

But research by the 21st Club suggests the phenomenon is over-rated.

"We have done a lot of research on this. Football is an unusual sport and is quite low scoring. That means a team can play well and lose or play poorly and win," Omar Chaudhuri, head of football intelligence at the London-based sports consultants, told Reuters.

"What we see is that when managers are sacked, a lot of the times their teams have been playing okay, but without luck. It only needs one crucial moment per game to go against you and that is the difference between three points and one or one point and no points. In most cases sacked managers are unlucky.

"It's like calling tails five times in a row in a coin toss and losing each one. The next...