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The smart boardroom…
Sets the right pre-season expectations, based on the right metrics.Implements long-term strategies, rather than relying on short-term tactics. -
The cost of going nowhere
Problem-solving in football has become synonymous with money. If results aren’t good enough, cheques will be signed for new players and coaching staff, with cheaper and weaker recycled for dearer and perceivably stronger.But how often is there a benefit to all this cost? Have teams going through these same processes improved or simply gone in circles? -
Heads or tails?
It’s natural in life to want new things; such is the world we live in today. But as football’s summer transfer window reaches its climax, I was curious to find out how many new signings actually turn out to be an immediate success. -
Make three rules
Imagine, for a moment, that you wanted to make three rules in this transfer window to which your club must abide. -
In football analytics, the media isn’t always the message
Despite a few one off columns here and there—see Martin Samuel’s clanger on the alleged superfluousness of the marginal gains provided by analytics in football and other sports—the relationship between football stats analysts and major media organizations covering the sport has been relatively cozy over the last few years, particularly compared to ice hockey in North America. While the development and application of statistical science in the National Hockey League is the subject of fierce and often hostile debate in North American media circles, football analytics seems to be the quiet purview of a few open minded print journalists like Sean Ingle, Adam Bate and Jonathan Liew. Most football writers simply ignore it. -
The $999,999 question
A curious thing happens when a player hits 30. Ten of the most expensive signings ever made have been of players aged 28 or 29, but only one player in this subset was bought after his 30th birthday - the 31-year-old Gabriel Batistuta in 2000. This is a severe drop-off, no doubt influenced by the fact that it is much easier to convince ourselves of the value of a deal when a key characteristic falls just below a significant number. -
When time catches up with our players
In order to build or sustain success, it is imperative that we understand the age at which our players perform at their peak. Unfortunately, it is also a neglected area of research, partly owing to the difficulties in measuring player development and maturation. -
In the future: the wisdom of the crowds will decide who gets picked
Ten years from now, football clubs will rely on social media as an essential tool for talent identification and recruitment, much in the same way many employers today are...
