At last, with thanks to the Guardian, we have the definitive wage bills of the 2012/13 Premier League season. This, of course, means that we can calculate the real winners and losers of last season. By winners here I mean the clubs that finished higher than their annual wage bills should have reasonably entitled them to and the losers are those who finished lower. Wenger masterminding a two goal win at home to Reading isn’t going to cut it…
Obviously, I am aware it is difficult for the clubs that pay the highest wage bills to overachieve by this metric, but, well… tough. They have everything else in their favour and, if you have Kompany, Toure, and Aguero, then you should win almost all of your league matches. For Man City to have a truly great season it would take, in my opinion, winning in great style or adding a cup or two to the title. It can be done, and perhaps I should add points for Cup successes to the table.
Anyway, here are the results for 2012/13:
| FI Position | Club | Wage Bill (m) | Expected Position | Actual Position | Outperformance |
| 1 | Swansea | 49 | 17 | 9 | 8 |
| 2 | West Brom | 54 | 15 | 8 | 7 |
| 3 | Norwich | 51 | 16 | 11 | 5 |
| 4 | Everton | 63 | 10 | 6 | 4 |
| 5 | West Ham | 56 | 14 | 10 | 4 |
| 6 | Southampton | 47 | 18 | 14 | 4 |
| 7 | Wigan | 44 | 20 | 18 | 2 |
| 8 | Tottenham | 96 | 6 | 5 | 1 |
| 9 | Man United | 181 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 10 | Reading | 46 | 19 | 19 | 0 |
| 11 | Arsenal | 154 | 4 | 4 | 0 |
| 12 | Chelsea | 179 | 3 | 3 | 0 |
| 13 | Stoke | 60 | 12 | 13 | -1 |
| 14 | Man City | 233 | 1 | 2 | -1 |
| 15 | Liverpool | 132 | 5 | 7 | -2 |
| 16 | Fulham | 67 | 9 | 12 | -3 |
| 17 | Sunderland | 58 | 13 | 17 | -4 |
| 18 | Newcastle | 62 | 11 | 16 | -5 |
| 19 | Aston Villa | 72 | 8 | 15 | -7 |
| 20 | QPR | 78 | 7 | 20 | -13 |
Ah what a happy world it would be to see Swansea, West Brom, and Norwich topping the table. Well, here they are! All three finished substantially higher than they should have last season, assuming that you take annual wage bills as the prime factor in determining where you should finish. Not that Laudrup, Clarke or Chris Hughton got much thanks for it – all three have since been sacked.
Another notable outperformer here, despite their relegation, is Wigan. Their tiny wage bill would barely pay for a team of Yorkshire hod carriers, by Premier League standards, but they still managed to win the FA Cup and play some fantastic and innovative football over the course of the season. If points were to be added for this, then Wigan would be serious challengers in the pound-for-pound league.
At the other end of the table, it is no surprise to see that QPR’s appalling season was fully reflected by this metric, as well as the more conventional league table. Rarely, if ever, can so much money have been spent so badly. Aston Villa also underachieved significantly, and look to have done so again this season. It will be interesting whether they decide to increase spending further over the Summer thereby throwing good money after bad.
Of the big boys, Man United, Chelsea, Man City and Arsenal all did ok with United obviously performing the best. Liverpool, it is interesting to see given their achievements this season, underperformed. I was surprised to see that their wage bill was as high as £132m. Perhaps selling Andy Carroll last Summer will reduce that for 2013/14–we shall see–but I will expect to see both Liverpool-based clubs topping this table when the next set of wage bills is released.