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Phil Chapple - From Frying Pan to Fire
Missed It
Posts: 2,734
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/fulham/12131412/Forget-Moneyball-Fulham-are-taking-Football-Manager-approach-in-hope-of-returning-to-big-time.html
Looks like Phil Chapple has escaped from one set of laptop wankers only to wind up stuck with another one!
While I believe their is a place for statistical analysis in player recruitment, some owners seem to be overly sold on it these days.
Looks like Phil Chapple has escaped from one set of laptop wankers only to wind up stuck with another one!
While I believe their is a place for statistical analysis in player recruitment, some owners seem to be overly sold on it these days.
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Will be interesting to see how this pans out1
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Watching a player on a dvd or going on stats is a flawed model. Getting out and doing the ground work by watching the player. Find out about his attitude by listening to other parties on him. You will never get that by sitting in an armchair.12
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The data driven approach does make sense in US sports like Baseball and Basketball - bearing in mind the Yanks LOVE sporting stats.
However, this approach has very little value in football because it's so hard to put the data into the proper context.
Aussie Rugby League coach Wayne Bennett has a great line on this, "If someone comes in at half time with a clean stats sheet [meaning they have made no errors] then what that really tells me is they haven't really tried to do anything."
That's the point isn't it? One midfielder might have 100% passing success but those passes could have been 25 sideways passes that took his team nowhere - his team mate might have 50% passing success from 25 passes but three of his passes created clear cut chances.
It's the same with running - John Aldridge tells the story of how he would run himself into the ground closing down defenders until he played with Ian Rush at Liverpool in 1988 who taught him the art of closing off a pass by just moving a few steps to close the angle - saving him a huge amount of effort and running.
Finally, how could data ever measure what a player like Stuart Pearce or Tony Adams - both natural leaders - brought to their teams?27 -
Using data is probably a great way of lining up some potential targets for scouting, providing the person analysing the data is briefed on what type of player a manager is looking for. I'm all for using technology to assist with making decisions, but I don't think you should be letting the technology make decisions for you.16
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This 100%WestCountryAddick said:Using data is probably a great way of lining up some potential targets for scouting, providing the person analysing the data is briefed on what type of player a manager is looking for. I'm all for using technology to assist with making decisions, but I don't think you should be letting the technology make decisions for you.
The stats should alert the scouting team, who in turn go and watch the player, who then make the decision3 -
"Computer says no..."WestCountryAddick said:Using data is probably a great way of lining up some potential targets for scouting, providing the person analysing the data is briefed on what type of player a manager is looking for. I'm all for using technology to assist with making decisions, but I don't think you should be letting the technology make decisions for you.
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There is definitely a place for statistical analysis but the stats are only a small part of recruitment. You are dealing with human beings not cars. More than that, you are dealing with trying to get the best out of these human beings. I promise you if a footballer is not happy or settled you won't get everything from him.
Imagine if you worked for a company that only measured you exclusively on a set of stats. It wouldn't be long before the human part of you started performing to make them stats look good on you. So you'd stop helping people, you'd stop showing empathy and flexibility because they would negatively affect your stats.
Rory Delap tells a good story about OPTA stats as he would always come out high at Stoke. As he pointed out, when you are doing 20 crossfield runs to take long throws a game you will rack up a lot of kilometres. So he never moaned about doing it!
The poster who gave the rugby league analogy got it right about a player with clean stats.7 -
A Player's stats and the comments on a fans' website is probably a good indicator of a whether a player is worth looking at or not but nothing will beat being at a match and watching him play a few games0
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The 'hungry and angry' players signed by Curbishley mostly wouldn't have looked good on their previous stats. Context is a vital factor in judging how much significance to give to stats. If you don't know about that factor stats can be very misleading.5
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Agree with all that's already been said. Using stats on their own is lazy scouting and leads to poor signings, especially if you can't assess the relative qualities and differences between leagues, as has happened at our place. In the olden days, it was important to watch players in away matches to see if they had the character to defend properly, or get on the ball, when it got tough in a hostile situation. Being able to cope with the pace and physical nature of the championship is more important than a 90% successful pass rate in the French second division or the Portuguese League.
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It only makes sense if you are comparing like with like, clearly the Championship is the standard of the top flight in Belgium, Holland probably most of France.0
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There are conflicting views on why Fulham did not re-sign midfielder Steve Sidwell, a former player, on loan this month. Sidwell ended up at Brighton although sources have told Telegraph Sport that a deal to take him to Fulham had been agreed but was subsequently abandoned when the 33-year-old did not score highly enough on Kline’s statistical model.
Weird. And has been said before, it's tough to compare the pace and toughness, together with the sheer desperation, of the Championship with anywhere else; there's no other second tier like it. (The nearest would be Germany, I guess, but Bundesliga 2 isn't an economic basketcase.)0 -
When I worked for a massive US sports broadcaster there were some in the USA who genuinely believed this kind of statistical approach was the be all and end all. I once argued that it was not that simple to predict matches, for example, by this means as it could not take into things such as the impact of a dodgy curry or a row with a girlfriend etc. We were told, as fact, this did not matter. A lot of money was poured into the system and the man who ran it. Amazingly, it didn't work and was quietly binned.1
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As people are saying, statistics only tell part of the story.
Surely every manager wants to build a team - comprising players who support and bring the best out of each other, together capable of achieving or at least being competitive in their league.
No computer analysis is able to reveal how a bunch of very different personalities can blend together.
And that performances are confidence driven.
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Stats can play a part, but the more open play there is, the less they really tell you. Baseball is full of advanced stats, but that's because it's essentially a one-on-one situational sport. Pitcher vs. batter. There's a lot that can be found in the stats about players tendencies in certain situations.
It really doesn't tell you as much in open play situations. There are just too many variables. So it is useful to identify players to scout, but until you see them play, you really don't know anything.1 -
A decent book on this subject by Michael Calvin.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Nowhere-Men-Michael-Calvin/dp/00995802680 -
I wonder what Matthew le tissier's stats would look like1
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In cricket, players like Vaughan and Trescothick would never have been picked for England based on their county stats, but were picked by Duncan Fletcher because he looked at them and sense they could step up to international game.
That's not something that a laptop can pick up.2 -
I reckon this will become a bigger issue as more 'non-football' people become team owners. In their real-life businesses they want to see hard, quantifiable data before they invest. They are not prepared to go on, as they perceive it, the 'hunch' of a scout.0
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Yes, it's quite a balanced account. I can understand owners wanting to bring some science into the process, but a good scout to me is still worth his weight in gold.shirty5 said:A decent book on this subject by Michael Calvin.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Nowhere-Men-Michael-Calvin/dp/00995802680 - Sponsored links:
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Agree with most of what's been said. What surprises me most on these scientific recruitment strategies is that no one seems to bother building up a psychological profile of the players. Whether that be by the old fashioned meeting the player a few times, talking with trusted and wide group of people in the game on his character or just a fucking simple psychological profile. Sure things go wrong, but at least making sure the individual has the character to battle when you're not at a club that can give you everything.
We lucked out on not getting Delort, but no one seems to have picked up on his difficult and quick to quit attitude.
You have to say that the club's organisation under Powell and Chapple signed many players who looked and were able to perform in difficult circumstances. Shame they didn't get much money at all in the champ.
With regards to American sports you get the frequent option to release and trade players. Where contracts are shorter or where they can be cancelled quickly, statistical analysis can provide a basis for a decent strategy, but it's a strategy within a pyramid that is directly comparable in terms of performance parameters: It's one league where they must perform, they may get on the practice squad from Japan but they'll only get a short chance in the big leagues if at all.
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Should just start rumours about potential targets leaving and then check the selling club's forums.
If there's a lot of ffs and caps lock ranting then he's the next Scott Parker so sign him up. If they're in fits of laughter at the prospect of another mug club taking him on then he's probably the next Ali Dia so best not to proceed.
(Joking....please don't implement this Katrien)1 -
Fulham's latest manager, Jokanovic, doesn't seem too enamoured with the club's recruitment policy and the role of this American data analyst, Kline. Apparently the latter was introduced by the son of the American owner.
This is clearly not going to end well.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/371454590 -
I wonder how Phil Chapple fits in with this laptop analyst...Blucher said:Fulham's latest manager, Jokanovic, doesn't seem too enamoured with the club's recruitment policy and the role of this American data analyst, Kline. Apparently the latter was introduced by the son of the American owner.
This is clearly not going to end well.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/371454590 -
As the man said at the top of the thread, out of the frying pan, into the fire. It can't be much fun for Phil working under that regime.killerandflash said:
I wonder how Phil Chapple fits in with this laptop analyst...Blucher said:Fulham's latest manager, Jokanovic, doesn't seem too enamoured with the club's recruitment policy and the role of this American data analyst, Kline. Apparently the latter was introduced by the son of the American owner.
This is clearly not going to end well.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/37145459
At least Brentford had the sense to modify their approach last season. If Fulham fail to do so, they could find themselves in trouble, especially now they've lost their two best strikers from last season.0
