Arsenal’s ‘secret’ signing: club buys £2m revolutionary data company • Hacker News Board

Re: Arsenal’s ‘secret’ signing: club buys £2m revolutionary data company

#11

Post by wizzzzzy » Thu, Oct 22, 2015, 7:52 AM UTC

xbeta wrote: post #9

jumpwah wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Couching is not all scouting... no one's denying that Wenger is always on the look out for young prospects. But Wenger is a sort of 'old fashioned' coach. He prefers focusing on how his players can do better, rather than trying to focus on the weaknesses of the opponent, which is definitely not 'modern'. This has been slowly changing the past few seasons however. That being said, I'm definitely no #WOB just in…

It's sorta weird to chat about Arsenal here... I do agree with your above points, but he has his football (sorry American) philosophy which not most fans understand. The past decade, he cut his spending to just build a new stadium for Arsenal, budget is tight, so what to do? Bring in the new blood, and the hard data + analytics help! I'm hoping to see he can also bring in some data-driven approach on his on-field tac…

Yeah it's definitely weird chatting about Arsenal on HN. That said, I can't believe nobody has mentioned the Bayern 2-0 win in this thread yet!

Re: Arsenal’s ‘secret’ signing: club buys £2m revolutionary data company

#12

Post by EwanToo » Thu, Oct 22, 2015, 8:09 AM UTC

dopamean wrote: post #2

Never thought I'd see an article about Arsenal here. The "secret" purchase has been talked about for quite some time now. We'll see if it pays off. In the mean time, while we wait, Manchester United has spent a king's ransom on a teenager and so far it's looking like a great bet (yes, I know it's early still). I'm a strong believer in analytics in basketball and baseball but I wonder if in some sports, like soccer, i…

I'm not sure Martial is as risky a bet as people make out, it's not like United don't have a similar analytics team in place (every premier league team does), doing the same kind of analysis.

Arsene certainly revolutionised scouting, but I think now it's a lot more well understood by other managers.

Re: Arsenal’s ‘secret’ signing: club buys £2m revolutionary data company

#13

Post by kspaans » Thu, Oct 22, 2015, 8:15 AM UTC

kspaans wrote: post #10

dopamean wrote: post #2

Never thought I'd see an article about Arsenal here. The "secret" purchase has been talked about for quite some time now. We'll see if it pays off. In the mean time, while we wait, Manchester United has spent a king's ransom on a teenager and so far it's looking like a great bet (yes, I know it's early still). I'm a strong believer in analytics in basketball and baseball but I wonder if in some sports, like soccer, i…

Related question from a non-sports person, about those 'bargain' prices. How long does it take for a player to become legendary, and when does their price catch up? Is the contract a bargain because it locks-in the unknown player at a below-market price even after they become legendary? Or is it a bargain because the contract lasts a season or two and establishes the player's skill, after which they have inertia on t…

To expand on that a little with a software analogy, is it a bargain because they hired a talented intern who graduated into a full-time employee, or is it a bargain because they hired someone talented from a different country who has lower salary expectations?

Re: Arsenal’s ‘secret’ signing: club buys £2m revolutionary data company

#14

Post by rmvt » Thu, Oct 22, 2015, 8:17 AM UTC

varun640 wrote: post #7

Arsenal news on this page. Wow. "StatDNA’s database is now Arsenal’s database, so if Wenger wants to sign a defender, who is, say, 6ft 4in, an excellent reader of the game and an accurate passer, one push of a button will bring up the best options in world football." Interesting and Arsenal need a few.

i found that quote a bit funny. i was hoping that something like this system would be far more useful than that. i mean, football manager (the game) has been used for that purpose for ages now.

also, i don't believe that a system like this one is new. i can't find the source, but sometime ago i read SAP's owner (founder?) had a system much like this one built for the german national team.

Re: Arsenal’s ‘secret’ signing: club buys £2m revolutionary data company

#15

Post by xbeta » Thu, Oct 22, 2015, 8:20 AM UTC

kspaans wrote: post #13

kspaans wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related question from a non-sports person, about those 'bargain' prices. How long does it take for a player to become legendary, and when does their price catch up? Is the contract a bargain because it locks-in the unknown player at a below-market price even after they become legendary? Or is it a bargain because the contract lasts a season or two and establishes the player's skill, after which they have inertia on t…

To expand on that a little with a software analogy, is it a bargain because they hired a talented intern who graduated into a full-time employee, or is it a bargain because they hired someone talented from a different country who has lower salary expectations?

Well, very unlikely you will pay some 30+ aged footballers (except GK) much higher value regardless of which countries they were from. But for youngsters, they are full of potential, so a tool to help the club to scout is very helpful. In the past, they are relying heavily on "scouting agents", and that's bit of an art than science with data backed.

Re: Arsenal’s ‘secret’ signing: club buys £2m revolutionary data company

#16

Post by corin_ » Thu, Oct 22, 2015, 8:22 AM UTC

kspaans wrote: post #10

dopamean wrote: post #2

Never thought I'd see an article about Arsenal here. The "secret" purchase has been talked about for quite some time now. We'll see if it pays off. In the mean time, while we wait, Manchester United has spent a king's ransom on a teenager and so far it's looking like a great bet (yes, I know it's early still). I'm a strong believer in analytics in basketball and baseball but I wonder if in some sports, like soccer, i…

Related question from a non-sports person, about those 'bargain' prices. How long does it take for a player to become legendary, and when does their price catch up? Is the contract a bargain because it locks-in the unknown player at a below-market price even after they become legendary? Or is it a bargain because the contract lasts a season or two and establishes the player's skill, after which they have inertia on t…

In football (soccer), more so than in sports like baseball in America, players' costs are often more in the price tag when getting the player than their wages. A very good player might make £10m/yr in wages, and cost £50m to buy from a different team.

Unknown players will be cheaper on both, but even if you picked them up on a one year contract and they immediately proved that their next contract should be highly paid, you've still saved a potentially huge amount on buying them before they were worth a huge signing fee.

Gradually salary will catch up based on how well they play and based on the market, and the team that found this cheap player can either stop considering him a cheap player (but still be glad he came in cheaply), or can sell him on for a profit.

The top 10 salaries in the premier league range from ~£10m/year to ~£15m/year, so consider that buying a top player and keeping them for 2 years can often cost £20m-£80m. If you can buy a player for cheap and pay him not a huge amount, you can afford to spend a few years turning him into a star player and still come out way ahead even if in those few years he wasn't giving you value other than turning into a better player.

How long does it take for a player to become legendary? "Legendary" would normally be reserved either for the very best of the best, or on a team level based on both quality but also loyalty - as such you'd rarely see someone be called a legend before spending quite a few years at a club. But a player can go from relatively unknown to "shit he's really good" in as little as a season potentially - maybe he was playing in a league that doesn't get as much attention from countries with the bigger leagues, maybe he needed better team-mates around him to bring out his best, maybe a manager or coach helped him change his playing style very quickly, etc.

Re: Arsenal’s ‘secret’ signing: club buys £2m revolutionary data company

#17

Post by smcl » Thu, Oct 22, 2015, 8:24 AM UTC

kspaans wrote: post #10

dopamean wrote: post #2

Never thought I'd see an article about Arsenal here. The "secret" purchase has been talked about for quite some time now. We'll see if it pays off. In the mean time, while we wait, Manchester United has spent a king's ransom on a teenager and so far it's looking like a great bet (yes, I know it's early still). I'm a strong believer in analytics in basketball and baseball but I wonder if in some sports, like soccer, i…

Related question from a non-sports person, about those 'bargain' prices. How long does it take for a player to become legendary, and when does their price catch up? Is the contract a bargain because it locks-in the unknown player at a below-market price even after they become legendary? Or is it a bargain because the contract lasts a season or two and establishes the player's skill, after which they have inertia on t…

Semi-unknown players from mid-tier clubs simply cost far less in transfer fees than established high-profile players. A classic Arsene Wenger signing was Freddie Ljungberg (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fredrik_Ljungberg). He was signed from a team called Halmstads in the Swedish league. While Halmstads were doing pretty well in the Swedish league at this time, they were unknowns on the world scene. Since Arsenal had little competition in signing him and since Ljungberg was pretty unknown they were able to pay £3m - which is not a large sum at that level level. For some context, at the time the most expensive signing in the world was Denilson who Real Betis bought for £20m. However Ljungberg went on to play 216 games for Arsenal, scoring 72 goals which is a considerable number. For comparison Denilson - who was played in roughly the same position - played 186 games for Betis and scored 13 goals. Ljungberg is generally considered to be an Arsenal legend, while Denilson is thought of as an embarrassing waste of money and gets barely a footnote on the Real Betis wikipedia page.

As for what is considered a "legend" I really don't know, football is weird like that. It could be that you achieve this status by being an aggressive no-bullshit kinda guy (Vinnie Jones at Wimbledon), a world class player who stays at the same club his entire life (Ryan Giggs @ Man Utd) or just being an insanely prolific striker who scores for fun .

On this topic though, various newspapers\magazines\sites periodically publish "worst transfers" lists which are basically filler (everyone who cares already knows who will be on the lists), but which could be surprisingly enlightening for someone who's not familiar with football's transfer scene. This one's a bit advert-y but you'll get the gist: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1610214-13-stupidest-tran...

Re: Arsenal’s ‘secret’ signing: club buys £2m revolutionary data company

#18

Post by lmorris84 » Thu, Oct 22, 2015, 8:25 AM UTC

EwanToo wrote: post #12

dopamean wrote: post #2

Never thought I'd see an article about Arsenal here. The "secret" purchase has been talked about for quite some time now. We'll see if it pays off. In the mean time, while we wait, Manchester United has spent a king's ransom on a teenager and so far it's looking like a great bet (yes, I know it's early still). I'm a strong believer in analytics in basketball and baseball but I wonder if in some sports, like soccer, i…

I'm not sure Martial is as risky a bet as people make out, it's not like United don't have a similar analytics team in place (every premier league team does), doing the same kind of analysis. Arsene certainly revolutionised scouting, but I think now it's a lot more well understood by other managers.

The problem with applying analytics to Martial is the limited dataset - he only made about 50 appearances in his career before joining United. It's looking a good bet so far, but it's definitely a punt.

Re: Arsenal’s ‘secret’ signing: club buys £2m revolutionary data company

#19

Post by paublyrne » Thu, Oct 22, 2015, 8:30 AM UTC

kspaans wrote: post #10

dopamean wrote: post #2

Never thought I'd see an article about Arsenal here. The "secret" purchase has been talked about for quite some time now. We'll see if it pays off. In the mean time, while we wait, Manchester United has spent a king's ransom on a teenager and so far it's looking like a great bet (yes, I know it's early still). I'm a strong believer in analytics in basketball and baseball but I wonder if in some sports, like soccer, i…

Related question from a non-sports person, about those 'bargain' prices. How long does it take for a player to become legendary, and when does their price catch up? Is the contract a bargain because it locks-in the unknown player at a below-market price even after they become legendary? Or is it a bargain because the contract lasts a season or two and establishes the player's skill, after which they have inertia on t…

In football at the moment, there are two elements to price - wages and purchase price.

Clubs 'sell' players who are already contracted to them, to other clubs, in order to have the contract nullified. The price can be tens of millions of euro. The buying club will tie down the new player to a long contract as part of the purchase, perhaps 4 or 5 years.

Wages are low for young players, but will be increased rapidly if the player emerges as a real talent that other clubs would want, which gives the club the chance to extend the contract through renegotiation. A longer contract for a highly rated young player would mean higher wages also as part of the bargain, although contracts can be renegotiated and extended with higher wages at any time, if the club views the player as an asset that they wish to keep.

When they extend that contract it generally means that another club who tries to buy will have to pay more, and usually wages are at least matched and often increased by the buying club.

Sorry that's not a succinct answer.

Re: Arsenal’s ‘secret’ signing: club buys £2m revolutionary data company

#20

Post by patrickk » Thu, Oct 22, 2015, 8:30 AM UTC

kspaans wrote: post #10

dopamean wrote: post #2

Never thought I'd see an article about Arsenal here. The "secret" purchase has been talked about for quite some time now. We'll see if it pays off. In the mean time, while we wait, Manchester United has spent a king's ransom on a teenager and so far it's looking like a great bet (yes, I know it's early still). I'm a strong believer in analytics in basketball and baseball but I wonder if in some sports, like soccer, i…

Related question from a non-sports person, about those 'bargain' prices. How long does it take for a player to become legendary, and when does their price catch up? Is the contract a bargain because it locks-in the unknown player at a below-market price even after they become legendary? Or is it a bargain because the contract lasts a season or two and establishes the player's skill, after which they have inertia on t…

It's incredibly random in football when it comes to assigning value to players, at least in Europe.

Take the example of James Rodríguez[1], a young Colombian player. His "value" suddenly skyrocketed[2] when he scored this wonder goal[3] in the 2014 World cup. Next thing, Real Madrid snapped him up for €80million, the decision at least partially influenced by Real's "Galaticos"[4] transfer policy, and the fact that Real can increase their commercial influence in a Spanish speaking country because Rodríguez is Colombian.

Other factors that influence a players value:

- time left on contract (longer time means more money)

- "marketability" e.g. player's ability to sell lots of club merchandise, and improve the club's brand

- perceived desperation of the buying/selling club (do they have a desperate need for a top class striker to make up for a lack of goals?)

- if there is a bidding war between clubs (e.g. young French striker Antony Martial was subject to a bidding war between Manchester United and Chelsea, dramatically driving up his value.)

- perceived transfer war chest of the buying club

- player's age

- if the player came off the back of a successful international tournament, which dramatically (sometimes artificially) showcases their skill. Sometimes teams will buy a player ahead of the tournament to prevent a later bidding war.

- skill of the player's agent (e.g. Raheem Sterling to Man City)

- then players skill and so on...

Every deal is a virtual once-off, it's always a bargain in hindsight[5] (whether you pay little or big money or not) and the player exceeds whatever the initial expectations were.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Rodr%C3%ADguez

[2] http://www.transfermarkt.com/james-rodriguez/profil/spieler/...

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GESyL3MkgNU

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gal%C3%A1cticos

[5] http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/a...