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The body count
If you can’t count what’s important, you make what you can count important
In Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s epic 10-part, 17-hour Vietnam War documentary series, retired army officer James Willbank succinctly summed up the approach senior officials took to measuring the success of military operations. By body count, the US were winning the war, and […] -
Overcoming our biggest recruitment mistakes
Just like the universe is governed by a set of rational laws that we can discover and understand, football’s transfer market is also determined by factors that we’re able to research and control.
Such research helps us understand what happened, why it happened and what might happen in the future. It can rinse our eyes and […]
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The realistic recruiter
Signing new players represents one of the biggest opportunities to move the needle in football, regardless of our club’s size and stature. It also carries a huge risk: the cost of getting it wrong.
Fans and other stakeholders expect new signings to make an instant impact, yet they often fail to become core players in […]
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An unwanted record
Earlier this week we launched Acquisition, our new product that helps football clubs mitigate risk and maximise success in the transfer market. Acquisition was born out of us seeing the level of inefficiency in player trading and wanting to help clubs make smarter decisions with their money.
For a good example of how money is often […]
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The challenge of scouting Ajax
Ajax’s impressive run to the Europa League final alerted clubs across Europe to the potential of the young players in their squad, and suggested to many that they had the temperament as well as the skill to compete in bigger leagues.
While clubs have access to video as well as the ability to watch Ajax’s players […]
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How to spend it
When deciding how to improve our squad over the summer, we often have to choose between prioritising defence and attack. In the last four years, clubs have spent just over 75% of transfer fees on midfielders and attackers, which suggests that at the very least clubs are prepared to pay more for attacking talent (perhaps […]
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The importance of self-awareness
In a recent article for The Guardian, Oliver Burkeman reported on some of the work being done by Tasha Eurich, an organisational psychologist, author and expert on the subject of self-awareness.
According to Eurich, 95% of people think they’re self-aware but only 10-15% of us really are. If we’re not self-aware then we only have a […] -
Because thinking is hard
Back in January we wrote about some of the cognitive biases that can hinder our better judgement when recruiting new players. For example, we might overvalue experience – because know-how feels safe and so we assume it’s important – or be overly optimistic about a new player because we desperately want the signing to work out.
Since […]
