This article was published over a year ago.
Arsenal’s ‘secret’ signing: club buys £2m revolutionary data company
31–40 of 51 posts
Re: Arsenal’s ‘secret’ signing: club buys £2m revolutionary data company
#32Never 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 think it's fair to say Arsene's ability to buy bargain players has died up. Gone are the days of Henry/Viera/Van Percy coming in as mediocre players only to be indispensable a season later. I think if you look at some of the more recent meteoric rises, they all seems to come from lesser leagues or clubs, BVB/Juventus/Atlético Madrid/Porto, and to some extent Liverpool/Spurs (Bale/Suarez/Sterling/Coutinho/Kane). I t…
I think the analytical approach is still working for Arsenal; Monreal, Koscielny, Coquelin, Bellerin, Carzola, Giroud - non of those guys were marquee signings who cost loads, but all are now indispensable and could arguably walk into most teams in Europe.
The analytical approach is clearly working for other teams too. The game is slowly changing and people are finally seeing the worth in the stats.
Re: Arsenal’s ‘secret’ signing: club buys £2m revolutionary data company
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's fair to say Arsene's ability to buy bargain players has died up. Gone are the days of Henry/Viera/Van Percy coming in as mediocre players only to be indispensable a season later. I think if you look at some of the more recent meteoric rises, they all seems to come from lesser leagues or clubs, BVB/Juventus/Atlético Madrid/Porto, and to some extent Liverpool/Spurs (Bale/Suarez/Sterling/Coutinho/Kane). I t…
I think the analytical approach is still working for Arsenal; Monreal, Koscielny, Coquelin, Bellerin, Carzola, Giroud - non of those guys were marquee signings who cost loads, but all are now indispensable and could arguably walk into most teams in Europe. The analytical approach is clearly working for other teams too. The game is slowly changing and people are finally seeing the worth in the stats.
I would argue they are typical squad players for a team of Arsenal's level. I would be very surprised to see any of them get poached from another champions league club, or have a statue erected outside the Emirates.
Analytic no doubt played a part in their signing, but it's hard to argue that they are exceptional examples of recruitment in the way Lewandowski or Kagawa were to Dortmund.
Re: Arsenal’s ‘secret’ signing: club buys £2m revolutionary data company
#34The owner of SmartOdds betting company, Matthew Benham is applying his company's statistical insights to the clubs he owns. This has proven quite successful. Great to see Arsenal doing the same. http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/jul/27/how-fc-midtj...
It has to be said, the article gives remarkably little insight into what Benham's statistical system actually offers (and of course what was so objectionable about it to the successful manager who chose to part company with the club over it). I mean, any football club in the world has access to data on "any two-footed left-back in the world of a certain standard, aged 22-26, who has not been injured for the previous 18 months"; we had games that could do this pretty reliably in the 1990s.
Football seems like a particularly difficult sport to try the Moneyball approach with because it's largely a battle of team cohesion rather than individual skills, and even apparently novel and meaningful heuristics one might devise like "percentage of forward passes completed in opposition half over the course of a season" are likely to be heavily influenced by the tactical approach of the player's team. Even if your telemetry data is incredibly comprehensive, it's going to be difficult to teach a computer the difference between chances created because the timing of the pass was exquisite and chances succeeded because the covering defenders were out of position or made a glaring hash of the interception; not something you'll ever find coaches or commentators struggling to decide on.
Re: Arsenal’s ‘secret’ signing: club buys £2m revolutionary data company
#35Any idea why this come up one year after being published?
Re: Arsenal’s ‘secret’ signing: club buys £2m revolutionary data company
#36As sports are now much more data driven, is there any other analytics are doing similar? In this case of Arsenal, they purchased it for "scouting" purpose. I would also love to see if some sport clubs can leverage the data and make sport management as a predictable science.
One of the ways Videobserver [1] addresses this is by providing tools to speed up video analysis and to gather data for statistical analysis.
Re: Arsenal’s ‘secret’ signing: club buys £2m revolutionary data company
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the analytical approach is still working for Arsenal; Monreal, Koscielny, Coquelin, Bellerin, Carzola, Giroud - non of those guys were marquee signings who cost loads, but all are now indispensable and could arguably walk into most teams in Europe. The analytical approach is clearly working for other teams too. The game is slowly changing and people are finally seeing the worth in the stats.
I would argue they are typical squad players for a team of Arsenal's level. I would be very surprised to see any of them get poached from another champions league club, or have a statue erected outside the Emirates. Analytic no doubt played a part in their signing, but it's hard to argue that they are exceptional examples of recruitment in the way Lewandowski or Kagawa were to Dortmund.
I think those players all have the potential to achieve legend status at Arsenal (maybe not Monreal so much, and maybe not Giroud though for the latter I'd argue because he's under-rated by many) if they a.) Keep going the way they're hoped to for a few years (improving for youngsters like Bellerin, staying the same quality for Cazorla) and b.) are instrumental in bringing a few more trophies to the club. It needs a mix of personal quality, longevity at the club and also team success.
That said, even if none of them go down in the books as legends, they can still be excellent examples of great value purchases.
Re: Arsenal’s ‘secret’ signing: club buys £2m revolutionary data company
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the analytical approach is still working for Arsenal; Monreal, Koscielny, Coquelin, Bellerin, Carzola, Giroud - non of those guys were marquee signings who cost loads, but all are now indispensable and could arguably walk into most teams in Europe. The analytical approach is clearly working for other teams too. The game is slowly changing and people are finally seeing the worth in the stats.
I would argue they are typical squad players for a team of Arsenal's level. I would be very surprised to see any of them get poached from another champions league club, or have a statue erected outside the Emirates. Analytic no doubt played a part in their signing, but it's hard to argue that they are exceptional examples of recruitment in the way Lewandowski or Kagawa were to Dortmund.
To your point, I'd say two of his best signings in recent memory were Cech and Özil -- both mature players who were already recognized as hugely talented on the international level.
However in fairness to Wegner, I think Danny Welbeck was identified to be a potential "hidden gem" but unfortunately he has been plauged by injuries. And it's hard to criticize one for being unable to find the likes of Henry.
Re: Arsenal’s ‘secret’ signing: club buys £2m revolutionary data company
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree (and I am too an Arsenal fan). Wenger always brought in these new blood who are mostly below the age of 23, and I guess that's the trick he used to scout them. I also think he is not the type of guy brag about his tricks. But this is just for scouting. I'm yet to see someone can get all the data on each games, and help in coming up with tactics and strategy for planning the next match. Perhaps employ some…
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…
Gotta disagree there. Take the game against Bayern a couple of days ago - he knew that Guardiola prefers to play possession football so he let him do that. Arsenal defended deep in response, hitting Bayern on the counter and reaped a 2-0 result. He certainly exploited the flaws in Bayern's game.
Re: Arsenal’s ‘secret’ signing: club buys £2m revolutionary data company
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the analytical approach is still working for Arsenal; Monreal, Koscielny, Coquelin, Bellerin, Carzola, Giroud - non of those guys were marquee signings who cost loads, but all are now indispensable and could arguably walk into most teams in Europe. The analytical approach is clearly working for other teams too. The game is slowly changing and people are finally seeing the worth in the stats.
I would argue they are typical squad players for a team of Arsenal's level. I would be very surprised to see any of them get poached from another champions league club, or have a statue erected outside the Emirates. Analytic no doubt played a part in their signing, but it's hard to argue that they are exceptional examples of recruitment in the way Lewandowski or Kagawa were to Dortmund.
Wow - Had to mention Harry Kane on here huh? He is a real star, did you see his wunder(own)goal the other day? Took his tally up to 2 goals on the year! Our carl jenkinson has more than him! (ef the spuds).
In all seriousness, I don't think arsene's ability to unearth hidden gems and turn them into 10/20/30 million $ players has completely gone. I mean FFS hector bellerin (not really unearthed from some hidden continent in Africa, he was bought as teenager from Barcalona) was a complete unknown and now is dead locked for the first team spot for Arsenal. This is the unknown youngster who, within a span of 1.5 years, went from nothin to first team start. He just played against Bayern Munich which is possibly the best team in the world, was able to keep Douglas Costa off the score sheet (top top winger/stricker) and to top it off, made the most insane interception I have ever seen. His pace is literally electric and even sitting at home on my couch I can feel the people in the Emirates standing on edge when he starts racing forwards.