Statistics or Talent?

[DavidinSouthampton]

My reading of the article was that stats are still very important but that the human element and what the scouts bring to it can not be ignored - how players react when things are going wrong, what they are doing off the ball and various other things it mentions.

You don't lumber a manager with players he doesn't like just because they have good statistics.

 

[Hugh'sDad]

'Success' for clubs of our level happen rarely, and are kin to alchemy. Every now and then a clever dick will come along and improve certain aspects of the approach to football, but it never lasts long - it is soon observed,copied and the originating talent drawn away to more lucrative fields.

Southampton are a good example of raising talent, exploiting it and selling on, but I've heard no end of speculation about similar sized clubs' plans to emulate the process, and of larger wealthier clubs plans to lure away the architects.
I'd say that the true 'talent' pool is finite, so if the methodology is replicated elsewhere, it becomes a game of diminishing returns.

Other examples such as Dutch 'Total Football' in the seventies, the Italian leap forward with dietary and physical monitoring in the eighties at Milan, also show that innovation soon become industry standards that are required just to stand still.

Then it comes back to who has the biggest wedge......as always.

 

[Hampster Gull]

Looking at this article in the Argus yesterday, it does shed some light on the last couple of years transfer dealings and methods and to some extent gives me a bit more sympathy towards Oscar and Hyppia. It seems recruitment certainly had been transformed into a statistical process, at Bloom's request and that perhaps now we are moving away from it. 4 analysts FFS! Seems to me that Bloom was drawn into a competition with his old business rival Benham at Brentford, both eager to prove that their mathematical methods would succeed. Living in Denmark I also know that Benham's methods have been used at FC Midtjylland that currently top the Danish Superliga by a fair margin. Articles here have described their new analytical and statistical approach to transfers, team selection and tactics, all at the behest of Benham. While Benham seems to be going full out this method, parting with Warburton in the process, it seems perhaps now with Hughton that Bloom has been forced to see common sense and bring back more of a human aspect to the process. Reading about Benham's methods at FC Midtjylland it does make me wonder about the extent of Bloom's influence right to the heart of the team in the last couple of years, not from personal interference but from the methods he wanted used. Whilst still retaining 4 analysts, to me at least it seems with Hughton and buys like Kayal that we are combining a modern statistical approach with a more traditional manager role in selection and recruitment. To me it would also explain a lot of Poyet's disenchantment, more so than financial limitations. I hope statistics will never stifle talent, otherwise we will end with a team of JFC's and Gary Gardners.

Really interesting post, thanks

 

[Stat Brother]

My reading of the article was that stats are still very important but that the human element and what the scouts bring to it can not be ignored - how players react when things are going wrong, what they are doing off the ball and various other things it mentions.

You don't lumber a manager with players he doesn't like just because they have good statistics.

I don't think it's quite that simple.
I think the point is everybody needs to be fully invested in a 'moneyball' statistic based squad.

The problem with that is football is still old school enough that the cure all is 'sack the manager'.
So there's absolutely no incentive to be a moneyball manager.
Assuming you're going to get the sack you might as well be sacked for your own decisions.

That would certainly go someway to explain Tony's 'stand by my man' approach, but in the end Sami is still currently out of work.

 

[Billy in Bristol]

For those who haven't read Moneyball, the book, it's about the search for undervalued attributes in baseball that allowed a small-market team (the Oakland Athletics) to compete by identifying players whose qualities richer rivals don't fully appreciate. But since the book was published, the other teams have all wised up and everyone is looking for the same things. Footb all clubs have been trying to do the same for about the same length of time, and I still don't think anyone has identified the magic stat, the equivalent of on-base percentage in baseball. It might not exist, of course. .

Billy Beane ( the igniter not architect of Moneyball) is a big football fan (even calls it that), when the film came out he was trotted out on many a sports show and asked whether it could be applied - even he had doubts.

And has anyone else clicked on this thinking that this was about Peter Moores...

 

[drew]

The problem with trying to adapt the Moneyball approach to football is that too much of what happens on a football pitch is hard to quantify. Okay, you can measure pass completion percentage, count the miles that players run, the number of tackles won etc - and the stats may help in the early stages by throwing out the names of players who warrant further investigation - but you still need scouting to look at players' body language, whether they are good talkers on the field, if they hide when things are going badly, if they do the work off the ball that isn't measured. And find out a bit about their attitude and off-the-field and refuelling habits - not mentioning any names.

Stats tell a part of the story. John Stones at Everton is held up as a promising defender of the type around whom a future England team could be built, because he's comfortable on the ball and keeps possession. I'll bet his stats are great. The minor problem when I last saw him was that he couldn't actually defend. His positioning was poor, and he misjudged his jump for a header and Everton conceded a goal as a result.

For those who haven't read Moneyball, the book, it's about the search for undervalued attributes in baseball that allowed a small-market team (the Oakland Athletics) to compete by identifying players whose qualities richer rivals don't fully appreciate. But since the book was published, the other teams have all wised up and everyone is looking for the same things. Footb all clubs have been trying to do the same for about the same length of time, and I still don't think anyone has identified the magic stat, the equivalent of on-base percentage in baseball. It might not exist, of course. .

I think you are missing the point. Seems clear that the data analysts are part of the team. In other words, scouts will still look at players and report back but if you just relied on a scout you could end up with a fantastic player that never plays more than 5 games a season, just so happens those five games were the ones the scout saw! Surely a lot of the stuff they will do is listen to what the manager says are the requirements and then they can use data to target the players for the scouts to watch.

 

[ThePompousPaladin]

So long as we get the balance right, I guess.

Manager - supported by scouting set-up;
Scouting set-up supported by mathematical models and statistics.

......but not the other way round!

The article reads as if it is the other way around...

Analysis first, backed up by scouts.