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Iwans Big Toe

Moneyball

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Norwich City are a club with limited

means. In relative terms to many other football clubs the City owners

are not that wealthy (of course compared to 99.99% of the 25,000 that

turn up every other week at Carrow Road they are incredibly wealthy).

But this means that the owners of our football club cannot help the

club to compete on a fair financial footing with most, if not all,

Premier League and a majority of Championship sides. Micheal

Wynn-Jones and Delia Smith have now owned a majority shareholding in

the club for the best part of 20 years and sadly in that time, not

taking into account the first 4 years under David McNally, they have

failed to get the best out of the resources at their disposal. For

all his quite considerably long list of faults this is something that

Robert Chase (barring the last year or so of his ownership) could not

be accused of. Under Chase and previously South and Watling Norwich

regularly seemed to be greater than the sum of their parts. The teams

of the 70''s, 80''s and early 90''s were often a hodgepodge of ageing

stars like Peters, O''Neill and Channon, savvy purchases like Forbes,

Bruce, Drinkell and Crook and youngsters, of which there were many:

Briggs, Stringer, Watson, Fashanu, Fox, Goss and Sutton to name a

few, produced by the club. And many from the later two groups were

sold on at a considerable profit.

To compete with the richer sides

Norwich need to look at buying and developing young talent to ensure

maximum resale value and once that happens get the “best bang for

their buck” so that it can be reinvested wisely into our playing

staff. Recently we have done the first bit reasonably well on

occasion, with the likes Fer, Snodgrass Johnson and Redmond, but the

finances raised from player sales have often been poorly reinvested

back into the side with far too many players like RVW, Steven

Naismith, Bassong, Miquel, Vadis, Andreu, the list goes on, not

cutting the mustard. Which for a team with the limited resources that

we have is unacceptable. Like teams such as Southampton, we need

to be maximising the transfer revenue we receive and investing it

wisely in replacements. I thought getting £12m, about 6 times what

we initially invested, for Nathan Redmond, who was also in the last

year of his contract was amazing business this summer. This example

of great business has been further exacerbated by Jacob Murphy coming

into the side and performing at a level on a par or even above what

we could have expected from Redmond this year. I also think that had

we seen Robbie Brady depart for £10-15m in the summer, Olsson leave

for the £4-5m that West Ham were reported to be offering or Naismith

to Sunderland for £8m this would have been good business too.

Especially as it would have removed players that don''t appear to be

all that committed to City and it could have meant that exciting

prospects like Toffolo, Canos and Maddison etc see more of an

opportunity to develop in our first team, rather than in the EFL

Trophy or out on loan.

Our current league plight demonstrates

that our recent focus on paying big wages and relatively high fees

for players in their late 20''s and early 30''s has not been a success,

and as such should not remain as a main part of the Norwich City

vision for the future. I also believe that many of the the players on

City''s books that fit this description should be shipped out as soon

as possible. Of course there are some in this category that we would

do well to retain, Wes, Cam, Howson and possibly, even Russell

Martin (I know, boooooo) would be top of my picks. But I would be

quite keen to see the back of players like Bassong, Whittaker,

Turner, Dorrans, Mulumbu, Lafferty, Olsson and probably even Ruddy

and Tettey. Ageing players, many of which have done well for the

club, but probably lack motivation and are now taking up a

considerable amount of our wage bill that could be invested wiser

elsewhere.

They should be replaced with hungry

players like City legend Grant Holt when he first joined, Jaimie

Vardy or Ricky Lambert in his Southampton days, for example. Players

who top flight teams were convinced were not good enough, but have

ability and are willing to work hard for an opportunity to reach

their potential. They are available, one need only look at

Bournemouth to see the truth of this statement. They are a side

filled with such players. Steve Cook, who is being mentioned as a

possible England defender was turning out for Eastbourne Borough just

6 years ago. Dan Gosling wasn''t deemed good enough for Everton and

didn''t have his contract renewed. Callum Wilson has appearances for

Tamworth and Kettering on his CV, while Charlie Daniels has made

League 1, Championship and Premier League appearances for

Bournemouth. Sadly Norwich have invested in far more players like

Cody McDonald, than Grant Holt. Going forwards, if the owners wish to

be competitive on the restrictive constraints that their comparative

lack of financial muscle forces on the club, this is something that

needs to change. Norwich City once again need to look at the lower

leagues and Premier League cast offs. There are always going to be

players that are deemed surplus to requirements by their current club

that can do a good job for us.

Of course the most important aspect of

achieving this is having not a good, but a great scouting network,

something I feel City desperately lack at the moment. Our scouts need

to know how the manager wants to play and then go and looks for

players that can fill the roles required. For example if the manager

is going to by-pass midfield and thump it long, there is no point is

spending time looking at pacy strikers that are 5''9”, they need to

look for big powerful men who can lead the line and hold up the ball.

Now the “Football board” was a step (no more than that) in the

right direction, but it appears to have been abandoned as quickly and

with as little forethought as when it was set up. More consideration

was needed as to who should have been appointed to this group of

people. The CEO should obviously have had a major role as the man who

holds the purse strings, but other than that I think that involving

scouts that focus on statistical analysis, like Ted Knutson, would

have been of greater benefit the club in the long term rather than some one

like Ricky Martin. Statistical analysis is something that German

coaches like Roger Schmidt, Joachim

Löw, Thomas Tuchel and Ralf Rangnick are focusing on more and more.

And with German coaches being among the most forward thinking coaches

in the world, I think Norwich would do well to get ahead of the curve

in England and start making use of a Moneyball type of system when it

comes to player recruitment.

For those that don''t know the term or haven''t seen the film,

Moneyball is a movie that dramatises the use of non-traditional baseball statistics to make a

successful Major League team. In real life baseball, the use

of sabermetrics, as the Moneyball system is known, has seen Liverpool

owner John Henry''s (and Fenway Frank''s) Boston Red Sox win the World

Series 3 times in the last 9 years after an 86 year wait, the Oakland

Athletics reach the play-offs in 8 of the last 16 seasons despite

being the 3rd poorest (in monetary terms) team in Major

League Baseball and my team, the Cleveland Indians (the 4th

poorest team) finish as runners-up in this years World Series only

narrowly missing out to another team built around sabermetrics, the

Chicago Cubs. Now I understand that baseball is a very different

sport from football, but the analytics principle has been transferred

to American Football, basketball and ice hockey, so there is no

reason that it shouldn''t work with football.

Former German international Stefan

Reinartz and current Hertha midfielder Jens Hegeler have developed a

new analytics system they call IMPECT. As defensive midfielders,

Reinartz and Hegeler began to feel that they were not getting enough

credit for the role that they played for the team. And that the

traditional statistics used to evaluate performance do not adequately

reflect team or player performance.

For example:

Team

A: 52% possession;

total shots 18; corner kicks 7

Team

B: 48% possession;

total shots 14; corner kicks 5

These kind of stats

are the ones that are most familiar to the armchair fan, and, at

first glance you would say that this was probably a quite even

contest between two well matched sides. However these stats come from

the 2014 World Cup Semi-Final and the final score was Team A

(Germany) 7 – Team B (Brazil) 1.

So what Reinartz and

Heggler have done is to try a develop a metrics system that

more accurately reflects player performance. A system that tells coaches

and scouts not just how many tackles, passes or shots that a player

completes but how effective each one was. For example if a defender

plays a forward pass that cuts out 4 opposition players and starts a

counter attack which results in a goal, he will be given more credit

than if, in the same scenario, he was to pass the ball sideways just

to retain possession.

I think that using a

system like IMPECT would mean that once Norwich have identified how

we wish to play, our scouts can then go out and look for players we

can afford that are most suited to that style of play. Rather than

use the scatter gun system of making approaches for any player that

the scouts have looked at, as we seemed to be doing with strikers

during the summer. Of course as with any analytics system in football

you are not guaranteed success like a GM would expect from a side

employing sabermetrics, there are many more variables in a game of

football than in basesball. That said though I do believe that

something like IMPECT would help us to be far more effective in the

transfer market with our limited resources than we have been over the

last 4 or 5 years. After all, Klopp seems to be doing an OK job at

Liverpool this year by employing a similar thought process. But then

again he is a forward thinking German coach.

However all of this would be a complete

waste of time if, when the time comes for a manager to depart, his

successor has completely different ideas about how the game of

football should be played. Let''s go back quite a few years, Norwich''s

best spell, when we were the most competitive on our limited budget

was when we kept playing a similar style under successive managers.

Brown, Stringer and Walker, even though they were their own men, with

their own ideas, built success on the foundation of their predecessor

and continued to play a style of flowing, passing football that the

manager before them employed. This has not happened with the

appointment of all (bar possibly Worthington) of the managers under

the current ownership. The last 6 managers have all had their own

distinct style of play and none built on the foundations of the

previous incumbent, except for possibly Lambert getting the most out

of players he inherited like Nelson, Holt, Lappin and Hoolahan etc.

But even he did not have the same thoughts on how to set up a side as

what his immediate predecessors Gunn and Roeder did. And City really

ran into problems when Hughton came in to replace Lambert. With their

footballing philosophies being so different, many of our best

players were alienated because they were being asked to stop playing a

style of football that they not only enjoyed, but were quite

successful at, Grant Holt anyone? So the “Football Board” or what

ever they choose to be called would need to be responsible for not just

player recruitment, but also for finding possible new managers/head

coaches and making sure that the incoming manager''s ideas as to how

he would want the team to play were similar to his predecessor. As Southampton and Swansea (especially as they are struggling now they seem to have new owners with new ideas) have shown over the last few seasons, continuity is key here.

Implement some forward thinking ideas

and I think that our relative lack of financial clout would be less

of an issue at English football''s top table and with a bit of shrewd

transfer business we might even see the days of the late 80'' and

early 90''s return. Oh for an FA cup semi-final, or qualification for

the UEFA Cup. Sadly what I suspect though is that rather than being

forward thinking trend setters, the owners, much like Edward and

Tubbs, will continue to be quite backwards in the way they approach running a

football club, as they indicated in the most recent interview, and they will want to keep the club as a local club for

local people. Meaning the added coverage and worldwide exposure that

success would bring is something that they wish to shy away from. And

I fear that because of this we are more likely to be making regular

trips to Valley Parade and Gigg Lane than we are to Old Trafford or

the San Siro.

And with my thoughts shared I would

like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a blessed and

prosperous New Year.

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Good post. I think these ideas can only be implemented post Alex Neil though. He''s shown he can''t set up a balanced team and the majority of his purchases have been disasterous.

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So; to summarise:

We need new, forward thinking owners.

We need a new, forward thinking manager.

We need a statistician not Ricky Martin.

We need younger, better players.

We need to buy more players that turn out to be heroes and stop buying zeroes.

We need to produce more players that turn out to be heroes and less that end up at Lowestoft Town.

We need Robert Chase back.

If all else fails, take up baseball.

In essence, we might as well set fire to the club and start again. Well, you never know what the New Year will bring.

Merry Xmas.

👍🎅🏻🙄

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IBT I think I''m right in saying Brentford tried to implement the Moneyball system and this was one of the reasons Mark Warburton left as he was totally against it. It hasn''t done to well for Brentford by the looks of things.

Merry Xmas.

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Moneyball works for stop-start, one on one games such as baseball. For a fluid and continuous sport such as football, I believe its uses are fundamentally limited.

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[quote user="Ron Manager"]IBT I think I''m right in saying Brentford tried to implement the Moneyball system and this was one of the reasons Mark Warburton left as he was totally against it. It hasn''t done to well for Brentford by the looks of things.

Merry Xmas.[/quote]I believe that you''re right Ron and Brentford are looking at using something similar to sabermetrics. What I would say is that if this season were to end tomorrow Brentford would finish in their second highest league position since 1945. If Norwich were to do as "badly" as that they would end up in the Champions League.

[quote user="Phil Collins"]Moneyball works for stop-start, one on one

games such as baseball. For a fluid and continuous sport such as

football, I believe its uses are fundamentally limited.[/quote]As I said in my op football and baseball have very little in common. However, Ice Hockey is a far more fluid game, along similar lines to football and many coaches use metric analysis very successfully in that sport.

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True. We would finish 4th.

Presumably though, the option is available to everyone else.

So both Manchester clubs, both Liverpool clubs, both North London clubs along with Chelsea, Leeds, Notts Forest, Newcastle, Blackburn, Aston Villa, Scum, Derby, QPR, Southampton, Burnley, Wolves would all finish in the champions league places - or at least be challenging for them - too.

God knows who''d get relegated.

It''s a bit like if every club had gazillionaire owners. Three would still get relegated, unless we could make it a closed shop. God knows how we could get into that either. Even if we had Bill Gates as majority shareholder we''d be hard pressed to demonstrate that we were one of the most deserving twenty. I also doubt there''d be many other clubs pleading our case given the logistics of playing us.

Still, if we did replace everyone, change our approach to this moneyshot thing, got Chase back and changed our name to Norwich Hotshots or something...

We should also try and sort out a ground with better transport links, possibly involving the UEA or Broadland Business Park.

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Thanks for taking the time to write that Iwan, to be honest it was a much better piece than some of the self indulgent blogs that seem to end up on here.

The point you raise about recruitment is crucial for me, our record on this is frankly appalling, the people involved have let the club down badly and frankly should no longer be on the payroll.

👍

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http://bundesligafanatic.com/impect-packing-the-future-of-football-analytics-is-here/

Here''s another article discussing the relative merits of the suggested system.

👍

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[quote user="Duncan Edwards"]So; to summarise:

We need new, forward thinking owners.

We need a new, forward thinking manager.

We need a statistician not Ricky Martin.

We need younger, better players.

We need to buy more players that turn out to be heroes and stop buying zeroes.

We need to produce more players that turn out to be heroes and less that end up at Lowestoft Town.

We need Robert Chase back.

If all else fails, take up baseball.

In essence, we might as well set fire to the club and start again. Well, you never know what the New Year will bring.

Merry Xmas.

👍🎅🏻🙄[/quote]If I had wanted a summary I wouldn''t have uses 2200 words. [;)]Happy Christmas.

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"I think Norwich would do well to get ahead of the curve in England and start making use of a Moneyball type of system when it comes to player recruitment."
Are you being serious IBT? This implies that comparable English clubs do not already utilise football analytics as an essential component in their recruitment process. The idea that Norwich might steal a march on others and "get ahead of the curve" in this respect is simply ludicrous. Indeed I''m wondering who exactly is so ill-informed about the role of analytics in the modern game that they need the scales lifted from their eyes. Far from getting ahead of the curve, I would imagine the problem for us is rather to accelerate the process of catching up, the obvious point being that effective scouting and recruitment requires that money be invested in this type of essential off-field infrastructure rather than player wages and transfer fees. Which takes me back to my oft-expressed opinion that Lambert''s chief legacy was to bequeath his successors a PL club totally ill-prepared for survival in the top tier because wholly lacking in the supporting infrastructure needed. 

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IBT, appreciate the reply and Re Brentford I would presume there best ever finish was last year with Warburton at the helm (who I might add I would love to see at Norwich but doubt very much if it will happen). It would be interesting to see if a club in the English leagues was to fully implement it or similar and how they got on. Whilst I mocked Brentford I am quite intrigued as to see whether a similar model to Moneyball would work and even more so if that club were City.

I doubt we would take on a fully fledged system like this and I''m pretty sure that we and other clubs have a somewhat similar if limited system in place all ready. Opta and to a lesser extent Football Manager are used through out the game now so the initial factors of a Moneyball system are no doubt in use.

It would be interesting to hear the views of our resident scout and tactical guru Parma''s take on the Moneyball/similar systems and how they are perceived and used in the modern English leagues! Parma, ''where are you, let''s be havin you''''re thoughts if available.

Merry Xmas!! OTBC tomorrow, let''s have a result to cheer us up!

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Totally agree Nige, quite how we are blessed with such a knowledgable chap on this forum surprises me! Insert Winky smiley blushed looking icon here!

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[quote user="nutty nigel"]Agreed Ron. Parma writes some great and original posts. He''s a real asset to this forum.[/quote]If only you could come up with some great and original posts also, it would mean that you are a real asset to this forum too. But then how would you beat Morty to the 40,000 post count if everything you said was original?Happy Christmas.

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[quote user="Duncan Edwards"]He could probably post a few of his own, copy and paste the rest and claim the full 40,000.

😂

Festive Thoughts.[/quote]Sorry, didn''t realise that I had to include a list of references when citing information I''ve sourced from elsewhere to support a point I''m trying to make. Thanks for the heads up though. Going forwards, is the use of the Harvard Reference style acceptable when sharing any thoughts I may have in the future or is there another system you prefer I use?

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[quote user="westcoastcanary"]"I think Norwich would do well to get ahead of the curve in England and start making use of a Moneyball type of system when it comes to player recruitment."
Are you being serious IBT? This implies that comparable English clubs do not already utilise football analytics as an essential component in their recruitment process. The idea that Norwich might steal a march on others and "get ahead of the curve" in this respect is simply ludicrous. Indeed I''m wondering who exactly is so ill-informed about the role of analytics in the modern game that they need the scales lifted from their eyes. Far from getting ahead of the curve, I would imagine the problem for us is rather to accelerate the process of catching up, the obvious point being that effective scouting and recruitment requires that money be invested in this type of essential off-field infrastructure rather than player wages and transfer fees. Which takes me back to my oft-expressed opinion that Lambert''s chief legacy was to bequeath his successors a PL club totally ill-prepared for survival in the top tier because wholly lacking in the supporting infrastructure needed. 
[/quote]I understand what you are saying about statistics being used already to identify players already in football WCC, as they were in baseball before the widespread implementation of sabermetrics. Things like number of passes, km covered and shots on goal don''t give the whole picture though do they? What these traditional stats don''t tell you is how effective a player is and how they influence a game. They just tell you how far a player has run, but not how many of those runs pulled a defender out of position to create space for a killer through ball. There is always an edge to be gained by looking to develop new systems in sport, be it tactics, training or scouting and if Norwich City are not looking to gain that edge then something is seriously wrong. The players, manager and CEO are very well paid to win football matches, not just to so they have something to do on a Saturday afternoon and any innovations in statistical analysis that can help them to achieve that should, in my opinion, be welcomed with open arms and not a "we dun''t try nuffin nooo" attitude.

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My point is that the analytics already being used by clubs have already moved way beyond what you refer to as "traditional stats". We are talking here about a continually evolving field of research and development. You put a spotlight on Reinartz and Heggler, but they are only two of many engaged in the process, most of which is unpublicised. I''m not for a moment playing down the huge importance to football of these developments, simply saying that IMO Norwich''s problem is most likely a question of lagging behind rather than getting to the front.

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The other example of a more quantitative based club are Brighton. Both Brentford and Brighton are owned by Chairman who head up highly successful football gambling syndicates, Tony Bloom and Matthew Benham. Both have staff of around 100 people analysing games across the world and both quantifying teams and players. In the same way as they look for ''value'' in gambling (e.g. something that is better value than the market perceives) they do the same in the transfer market and don''t pay what they think is too much for a player.

Where Brighton are slightly different as they rely a little more on scouting than Brentford still and also have a bigger budget to work with. Whichever way you dress it up though if you compare the resources that the likes of Bloom as to work with at Brighton when it comes to player recruitment, compared to the 5 or so analysts who sit at Norwich you can see why they are likely to overpay for a player (they still might not be a success), and why this is a solid long term business plan/football club model.

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For those interested in gambling/analytics interesting article here on Bloom who unlike Benham does not court publicity

http://uk.businessinsider.com/inside-story-star-lizard-tony-bloom-2016-2

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[quote user="westcoastcanary"]My point is that the analytics already being used by clubs have already moved way beyond what you refer to as "traditional stats". We are talking here about a continually evolving field of research and development. You put a spotlight on Reinartz and Heggler, but they are only two of many engaged in the process, most of which is unpublicised. I''m not for a moment playing down the huge importance to football of these developments, simply saying that IMO Norwich''s problem is most likely a question of lagging behind rather than getting to the front.[/quote]
Westy you are right. And this is the problem when the opening poster tries to insert his own spin into someone elses article. I was lucky enough to be invited on a Colney tour 10 years ago. And even at that time the things I saw in the classroom were really comprehensive. Better than anything I''ve seen on the internet. For instance they could pick a player from any club and get the most comprehensive stats. One example I remember showed the players percentages for making passes or receiving passes based on whether they were forward, backward, from/to left or right and more other options on just the passes than I can remember. They will have moved on a great deal since then. There is now a whole department at Colney with people whose job it is to collect and analyse the best data available. Doesn''t give us a big advantage because all clubs have it. But certainly stops us being at a disadvantage and if it''s at Colney then it''s "best in class".
I''m also struggling to understand the relevance of Chase/Delia eras in this. Delia brought sports science into the club and the people at the time kicked against it. Unbelievably a quote from Mike Walker at that time was used as anti Delia propaganda at the infamous St Andrews Hall meeting in 2009. Bruce Rioch with his experience of such things at Arsenal was brought in to help make the transition. 

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[quote user="nutty nigel"][quote user="westcoastcanary"]My point is that the analytics already being used by clubs have already moved way beyond what you refer to as "traditional stats". We are talking here about a continually evolving field of research and development. You put a spotlight on Reinartz and Heggler, but they are only two of many engaged in the process, most of which is unpublicised. I''m not for a moment playing down the huge importance to football of these developments, simply saying that IMO Norwich''s problem is most likely a question of lagging behind rather than getting to the front.[/quote]
Westy you are right. And this is the problem when the opening poster tries to insert his own spin into someone elses article. I was lucky enough to be invited on a Colney tour 10 years ago. And even at that time the things I saw in the classroom were really comprehensive. Better than anything I''ve seen on the internet. For instance they could pick a player from any club and get the most comprehensive stats. One example I remember showed the players percentages for making passes or receiving passes based on whether they were forward, backward, from/to left or right and more other options on just the passes than I can remember. They will have moved on a great deal since then. There is now a whole department at Colney with people whose job it is to collect and analyse the best data available. Doesn''t give us a big advantage because all clubs have it. But certainly stops us being at a disadvantage and if it''s at Colney then it''s "best in class".
I''m also struggling to understand the relevance of Chase/Delia eras in this. Delia brought sports science into the club and the people at the time kicked against it. Unbelievably a quote from Mike Walker at that time was used as anti Delia propaganda at the infamous St Andrews Hall meeting in 2009. Bruce Rioch with his experience of such things at Arsenal was brought in to help make the transition. 
[/quote]And there we have it. The oracle has spoken and everyone should bow to his superior knowledge as he has been there and seen it. What would I know, after all I only have a degree in sports coaching. How could I ever possibly hope to be as knowledgeable about football analytics as a toilet cleaner who once had a tour of a training ground a decade ago.

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Nigel "There is now a whole department at Colney with people whose job it is to collect and analyse the best data available. Doesn''t give us a big advantage because all clubs have it. But certainly stops us being at a disadvantage and if it''s at Colney then it''s "best in class".

All this data is fine, sadly it must be the human element that lets us down when it comes to recruitment Nigel.

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