Alex Stewart builds his ideal midfielder, even though Ibrahim Sangare already exists Scouting players is hard. Metrics can show actions by volume, while more sophisticated platforms can also show the impact or quality of certain actions. Players need to pass the eye test, while clubs will also dig in...

Alex Stewart revisits the ‘clutch’ topic and looks at last season’s goalscorers who delivered when it mattered most Back in 2019, Analytics FC Managing Director Jeremy Steele wrote a piece exploring the concept of ‘clutch’ goal scorers. As Jeremy put it: “The term is used regularly in US sports...

Jeremy Steele investigates the impact of national cultures on head coaches’ careers. Last week, in the course of working on some analysis for one of our Coach ID clients, we delved into some data gathered by CIES Football Observatory regarding the average length of head coaches’ stay at football...

Elliott Stapley looks for a way to quantify the benefits of progressive passes in the build up phase. “Pep hates these full-back to winger passes because they don’t offer progression, but I used to do them with Messi a lot and he’d be annoyed.” – Dani Alves Inspired by...

Josh Hobbs looks at the impact of Premier League 2 for developing talent within English football. The development of young players is always a hot topic in football. Clubs are constantly seeking that elusive model which will result in the best success rate for producing first-team ready players. Meanwhile,...

The arrival of data and analytics at football clubs has brought a lot of introspection and changes to the way that clubs operate, especially in the area of player recruitment.  We are often treated to behind-the-scenes snippets from sporting directors and analysts. However, coaches have been conspicuous by their...

Josh Hobbs looks at whether some European leagues are spending too much on the players they sign. In a recent article looking at the relationship between squad age and performance, I was able to show that there is no correlation between age and performance. One of the conclusions from...

Josh Hobbs looks into the relationship between success and squad ages to see if there is any correlation between age and performance in football. With speculation swirling around his future, Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer made a very interesting selection decision for their recent game against Tottenham Hotspur. The...

Josh Hobbs returns to his ‘Measuring Transfer Success Through Minutes Played’ article to see how TransferLab’s Goal Difference Added metric can clarify the findings. Last month, I published an article with Analytics FC looking at the idea of measuring transfer success by minutes played. The piece was inspired by...

Josh Hobbs explores one way of quantifying successful transfers through looking at ‘Minutes Played’. Speaking at the recent Statsbomb conference at Stamford Bridge, Liverpool Football Club’s Head of Research, Dr Ian Graham, made the claim that, statistically speaking, over 50% of ‘big transfers’—defined in this case as those over...